One of the best benefits of running your own Plex server is being able to watch your movies and shows wherever you are. Many folks will just log in to Plex on the hotel TV (assuming it has the Plex app) while traveling. I don't like doing this. For one thing smart TVs are generally underpowered and that can cause issues streaming. The other issue is I don't like to log in to a TV that isn't mine.
I have seen a ton of posts on Reddit over the years with different solutions for this. Many of them seem very complicated. I like to keep things simple.
Here is my current travel setup
- ONN 4K Android TV Box
- Plex
- Kodi - In case my location doesn't have decent internet connection.
- Jellyfin - In case Plex has any issues.
- YouTube TV
- Tailscale - I have this setup to auto connect and use one of my home servers (could be the Plex server) as an exit node. I have Plex, Kodi, and JellyFin added to the exceptions list so that they don't route through Tailscale. This is only really used for YouTube TV.
- WD 1TB External SSD (Offline Media)
- OTG Cable - For connecting the SSD
In this setup I have Plex (Jellyfin as backup) for when I have a good internet connection and can stream from my server. I have Kodi setup to point to the local SSD that has been pre-loaded with a selection of movies and shows in case the internet is not good enough for connecting to my Plex server. I have Tailscale setup to use one of my home servers as an exit node so that I can watch YouTube TV as if I were at home.
Note: I chose the ONN 4K 2023 box because it is cheap and it supports connecting an SSD via OTG cable. I had issues with other cheap boxes not recognizing the connection.
