Free Online Video For Technologically Advanced World Travelers

When you travel by bike, television access is probably one of the last things you’re going to find yourself thinking about. After all, bicycle touring, for many people at least, is a way of escaping modern society and partaking in a more simple lifestyle.

But for the 21st century bicycle traveler, someone who spends months or years on the road, watching a little TV now and then is a welcome reprise from life in the saddle.

The question then comes up, “How exactly do you watch TV if you are in a foreign country and all the channels on the tube are in a language you can’t understand?”

I’ve been struggling with just this problem for the past five months…. and my solution, astonishingly enough, has been online video.

Many traditional TV networks and Internet based companies are now serving full-length television shows and feature films online, for free, for anyone to watch and enjoy.

But wait! There’s a catch!

Many of these free online streams are currently only available to viewers inside the United States. Even many of the full-length TV shows broadcast over YouTube are blocked to viewers outside the U.S. of A. And based on my past five months of searching, MTV is one of the only networks currently streaming their numerous television shows online for free to a worldwide audience (although many of their music videos are still blocked to international viewers). ABC, Hulu.com, and YouTube all have systems in place to block viewers in locales outside of the U.S. (YouTube only blocks some shows).

Hulu

ABC

YouTube

As time goes on, I expect to see these various networks open up to a worldwide audience, but in the meantime I’m curious.

My question to readers outside the United States: If you watch TV shows or feature films online, which websites/services do you use to access these materials? Are there any free, legal, quality websites/services that you know of that allow world travelers to view online content no matter where they are on the globe? Let me know by leaving a comment below.