MSTERDAM -- INSIDE the Waag, a former customs house and gallows that towers over the Nieuwmarkt here, the price of cappuccino continues to rise. Yet the wireless Internet access in the surrounding square is perfectly free.

As this public-access project and countless others demonstrate, the phenomenon known as Wi-Fi has not gone unnoticed beyond the United States. So travelers heading abroad this summer with a Wi-Fi-equipped laptop will be able to log on at high speed, sometimes free, in places ranging from Amsterdam to Mount Everest to the Dead Sea.

With Internet access becoming a necessity for many travelers, typing e-mail on a stained keyboard in a local cybercafe has lost its charm.

"Sometimes you want more than access," said Scott Rafer, who runs http://www.wifinder.com/, which lists hot spots, or points of public access to Wi-Fi, around the world. "Sometimes you want access with your computer."

And unlike the solitary process of rearranging hotel-room furniture in search of a feeble dial-up connection, using Wi-Fi brings with it a social dividend. "It's relatively new in the Netherlands," said Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, founder of a Dutch wireless network called HubHop (

While Wi-Fi coverage has become commonplace at airports and major hotel chains, availability elsewhere may be in the form of pilot projects and prone to failures.

In several Asian countries, telephone companies were quick to see Wi-Fi's potential and establish networks of hot spots requiring a subscription, just as T-Mobile has done in the United States at Starbucks and Borders, and plans to do at Kinko's locations this fall.

Elsewhere, however, the consumer is often left to make sense of a confusing smorgasbord of providers. Even in Britain and Germany, where T-Mobile now has dozens of hot spots, an American T-Mobile account is not valid. On the other hand, Boingo (http://www.boingo.com/) does make its several hundred international hot spots available to its United States subscribers.

If you plan to stay in one area for most of your travels, you might be better off signing up with a local provider. Telia HomeRun of Sweden (http://www.homerun.telia.com/), for example, has Scandinavia more or less covered, plus a dozen or so international airports in North America, Asia and elsewhere. It shares a roaming agreement with Openzone (www.bt.com/openzone), the Wi-Fi service of BT, the British telecommunications company, although using it costs extra.

For its part, Openzone recently launched the Cloud, which will provide thousands of British pubs with Wi-Fi access.

Swisscom Eurospot, the other major provider (www.swisscom.com/eurospot) in Europe, is offering about 800 hot spots throughout the Continent.

Pricing plans vary. John Patrick, the retired vice president for Internet technology at I.B.M. and a veteran wireless Internet user on the road, said that when he stayed at a hotel that charged $20 for Wi-Fi service, "I used dial-up."

At Heathrow Airport in London, BT charges about $10 for an hour's access, whereas HubHop charges about $17 for a week of nationwide coverage. "Wi-Fi doesn't have to be free," Mr. Patrick said, "but the pricing has to make sense."

With most providers, you pay through an on-screen credit card process that is initiated when your computer detects a network. Often you can choose from among several competing providers.

Of course, users' needs vary. Mr. Veldhuijzen of HubHop recognizes that corporate travelers are willing to pay - and often pay a premium - for reliable, convenient service. "If I have a business meeting in the park and it's raining, I don't say, 'Follow me into the bushes, I want to show you something,' " he said. "But the paid hot spot inside the cafe is warm and dry."

Sean O'Sullivan, a documentary filmmaker based in Los Angeles, brings his Wi-Fi-equipped laptop to many of the industry festivals and conferences he attends. These days they all offer wired Internet access, "but there's always a line to get on a machine," he said. "With Wi-Fi, you never have to wait."

Mr. O'Sullivan also uses Wi-Fi to send digital images quickly. This task will soon become easier: Sanyo recently showed off a prototype Wi-Fi camera that lets users transmit snapshots directly to the Web.

Mr. Rafer of WiFinder cautioned that attendants may be undertrained, even when you are paying for a commercial network. If you have an important document to send and the network stops working, "the guy behind the counter won't know how to fix it," he said. Language barriers may make matters worse.

Familiar brand names can offer some consolation. All McDonald's restaurants in Australia are now equipped with Wi-Fi, for example, as are several hundred in South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Thailand. Certain meal combinations come with an hour of free access. And many Apple computer stores throughout Europe beam free Wi-Fi to the surrounding neighborhood, as they do in the United States.

If being offline for even a few hours is more than you can bear, you can now surf while flying. Lufthansa and British Airways recently introduced trans-Atlantic Wi-Fi with Boeing's Connexion service; Japan Airlines and Scandinavian Airlines System will offer the service soon.

Wi-Fi is also taking to the rails. A recent test project by Copenhagen and Goteborg in Sweden is to resume next month, followed by a Stockholm-Oslo route in the fall. The Gare du Nord station in Paris was recently equipped with Wi-Fi, and free access along a central Parisian bus route will be available until June 30 (users must sign up at http://www.wixos.net/). The German rail system, the Bundesbahn, recently announced similar plans for access.

Over all, the proliferation of Wi-Fi in public places, homes and workplaces - including those that unwittingly broadcast their signal to the world - means that your summer travels may well include a free ticket to the wireless Web.