I sit here at the ta­ble in my "of­fice" tak­ing time out from up­load­ing some pho­tographs to take in sur­round­ing sights, sounds and scents: the echo of chil­dren's feet as they scam­per to­ward KFC, the grind of a blender, piped mall mu­sic, low buzz of voic­es, smell of dis­in­fec­tant, young man clean­ing ta­bles, chairs scrap­ing as he moves them aside, idle squeaks of rub­ber soles on shiny floor as bored child in blue school uni­form waits for moth­er to make pur­chase in near­by jew­el­ry store.

I look back down at my lap­top and ob­serve: a mere 45.06MB of 93.14MB, up­load­ing in more time than it would usu­al­ly take. The free pub­lic wifi (FPW) is crawl­ing to­day in Low­lands Mall.Two tourists, see­ing me work­ing at my lap­top, come and ask what var­i­ous peo­ple in the mall have ap­proached and asked me on oc­ca­sion: "Do you get free wifi here?"Of course.Their faces light up, pos­si­bly an­tic­i­pat­ing the plea­sure of up­load­ing sun­ny beach pho­tos to Face­book to tease their city-dwelling friends back home.

When I moved to To­ba­go in Oc­to­ber 2012 and went to live in Good­wood on the south­east coast, I didn't know I would be­come an ex­pert in sourc­ing free pub­lic wifi. Good­wood, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 min­utes from Scar­bor­ough, head­ing in the di­rec­tion of Spey­side, is peace­ful and un­hur­ried, ex­cept for cars that of­ten screech per­ilous­ly around the bends.

My apart­ment, perched on a height at the edge of the At­lantic and nes­tled amidst trees, came nat­u­ral­ly equipped with con­stant sur­round-sound waves and bird­song, a front-seat view of sun­rise and an im­pres­sive chan­de­lier of stars that had lit­tle or no light pol­lu­tion to com­pete with their bril­liance. Such a place could make any­one feel that they are on an ex­tend­ed re­treat...not on­ly from the "civilised" world but, of­ten, al­so from the vir­tu­al world made ac­ces­si­ble by the In­ter­net.

It was the un­pre­dictable, some­times non-ex­is­tent In­ter­net sig­nal in the area that drove me to seek and dis­cov­er hotspots that were oases in the in­ter­net desert. For those who are ever seek­ing free wifi in To­ba­go, be­low are a few points on my two most-fre­quent­ed FPW lo­ca­tions–Low­lands Mall and the Scar­bor­ough Es­planade.The mall...ide­al for rainy days or for those who en­joy air con­di­tion­ing.

Wifi avail­abil­i­ty and strength: A se­lec­tion of re­li­able in­ter­net con­nec­tions, all pass­word-free: bzone, Haa­gen Dazs, Linksys, Dig­i­cel. Sit any­where in the mall and send/re­ceive e-mails, surf the net and con­duct Skype meet­ings with few or no glitch­es. Sig­nal strongest in/near the food court.Am­bi­ence and ameni­ties: Pleas­ant trop­i­cal d�cor with a mod­ern twist, air-con­di­tion­ing, con­sis­tent but gen­er­al­ly undis­rup­tive mall nois­es, va­ri­ety of fast-food out­lets, clean wash­rooms, di­verse shops and Movi­eTowne.

Seat­ing: High or low chairs at small but com­fort­able round ta­bles.Park­ing: Large car park, few cars. Find­ing a spot is al­ways easy.The car park/pavil­ion at the Scar­bor­ough Es­planade...ide­al for those seek­ing an FPW ex­pe­ri­ence with an out­door flavour.

Wifi strength: Con­sis­tent­ly strong for gen­er­al use, in­clu­sive of Skype–but wa­vers and some­times dis­con­nects dur­ing calls.

Am­bi­ence and ameni­ties: Ocean view, re­fresh­ing sea breeze, var­i­ous cre­ole food sheds for an as­sort­ment of eats and drinks, con­stant but undis­rup­tive hum of traf­fic and, some­times, waft­ing back­ground mu­sic or am­pli­fied re­li­gious con­ven­tions.

Seat­ing/ac­com­mo­da­tion: Op­tion of open-air con­crete seat and ta­ble sets (mi­nus um­brel­las), shady pavil­ion with bench­es and (for those who come with and stay in their cars) padded seat­ing, air con­di­tion­ing and per­son­al mu­sic se­lec­tion

Park­ing: Se­cure (guard on site) and small but, in my ex­pe­ri­ence, al­ways an avail­able spot.