Email On the Road Even When Blocked By the Locals

After paying $15 for the privilege of checking a suitcase, I boarded a flight to a family gathering. But my vacation didn’t start until I "de-planed;" I finished some work in the air to email after landing. The only problem was that that my family's xenophobic ISP blocks access to other mail servers, so I couldn't send from my regular email address. Wherever your regular outgoing mail server gets blocked, here's how to send from a different server but make it look like it's coming from your regular myname@mydomain account.

In Outlook, choose Tools, Account Settings. Double-click your email account. Change only the Outgoing mail server (SMTP) to what your temporary Internet connection uses. If the mail server allows anyone to send from within the network, you're finished. Click Test Account Settings to see if Outlook can send mail.

In my case, Earthlink required authentication. If needed, click More Settings, and click the Outgoing Server tab. Activate the checkbox at the top, and click the radio button to Log on using. Enter the ISP's mail username and password. Click OK, and click Test Settings to see if everything works.

Now mail will be sent using the local ISP's mail server. Recipients can still see detailed Internet headers and identify that local ISP, but without manually investigating, the email will look like it came from your regular account. They'll just reply as they normally would. Just reset the settings later when you return home.