As a regular blogger, I am in the habit of taking my laptop with me wherever I go. Some of my best blogs have been inspired by just watching everyday events unfold around me. If I see something interesting, I sit down, open up my MacBook and start typing away.

In the last couple of years, two things have contributed greatly to the success of my on-the-go blogging activities: Starbucks and Mobile Hotspots.

First of all, Starbucks took the bold step of providing free Wi-Fi in all 12,000 of its locations nationwide. Despite fears that this move would encourage thousands of budding entrepreneurs to use their local coffee house as a free all-day office, it has become everything Starbucks’ progressive management expected it to be: a much-appreciated convenience for a tech-savvy and extremely loyal customer base.

But there are plenty of times when I can’t get to a Starbucks – when I’m on a train or in the back of a cab, for example. Or when I’m suffering through one of those interminable waits with my kids at the doctor’s or dentist’s. For those occasions, I use one of the great innovations of the wireless age: the Mobile Hotspot.

Mobile Hotspots have been around for a while. They used to come in the form of a relatively expensive stand-alone device that plugged into the USB drive of your laptop and required you to download drivers and other software tools for activation. Such a Hotspot could cost as much as $60 per month, and I usually spent more time looking for the device than I ever did using it.

Now my Mobile Hotspot is embedded into the one thing I never go anywhere without: my smartphone! Almost all new smartphones come with a built-in Hotspot feature. My 4G LTE LG Lucid from Verizon has the Mobile Hotspot right alongside all the other pre-loaded Verizon apps, including VZ Navigator, Backup Assistant and My Verizon Mobile.

The Mobile Hotspot feature allows me to share the phone’s data connection with any Wi-Fi capable device, giving me super-fast web browsing and download speeds on my laptop, tablet and more. I can share my 4G connection with up to 10 total devices (5 devices in 3G mode), so I can also offer Hotspot access to friends whenever we are together and they can’t find a usable network.

The Mobile Hotspot feature used to cost an extra $20 per month but it’s now included with the $40 smartphone monthly access fee under Verizon’s Share Everything Plan. If you and your family use your Mobile Hotspots on a regular basis, you will need to factor in the data usage when you set up your plan.

Mobile Hotspots have revolutionized the way I work, literally making the Internet available wherever I go. Just one more reason to love my smartphone!

I have been compensated for this post. All opinions are my own.