It was a rainy Tuesday afternoon in Lisbon about three weeks ago, the kind of day where the cobblestones are lethal and the only sensible thing to do is stay inside a coworking space. I was tucked into a corner of a shared office in Santos, trying to sneak in a quick multiplayer session before my partner finished their marathon of New York-based video calls. I knew the moment I hit 'Join,' I was playing a dangerous game—not just with the enemy team, but with the bandwidth. My partner’s 'synergy' talk was already buzzing through the thin partition, and if my gaming caused their Zoom to stutter even once, I’d be the one apologizing for the next three days.
Just a quick heads-up before we get into the nitty-gritty: this site uses affiliate links. If you end up signing up for a VPN through these links, I earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend the ones I’ve actually paid for and wrestled with while trying to watch the Beeb or game from a hotel room in Porto. I'm all about full transparency, mainly because I've spent too much of my own money on things that didn't work.
I’ve been using Private Internet Access (PIA) on and off since 2022, mostly because that $2.03 price point is hard to ignore when you're trying to balance a nomad budget. But gaming is the ultimate stress test. It isn't like syncing a Figma file or even streaming University Challenge (though I’ll fight anyone who says a buffering Paxman isn't a tragedy). Gaming is all about latency—the 'ping'—which is the tiny, invisible delay between you clicking a button and the server in London realizing you’ve done it. If that number gets too high, you aren't playing; you're just watching a slideshow of your own demise.
The $2.03 Gamble: Why I Switched from the 'Gold Standard'
For a long time, I was an ExpressVPN loyalist. It’s the sleek, polished choice that just works, but at $6.67 a month, it started to feel like a luxury tax I couldn't justify anymore. When you’re living between Lisbon and Mexico City, those monthly differences pay for a lot of tacos and pastéis de nata. But moving to PIA felt like moving from a modern, minimalist apartment where everything is hidden behind soft-close drawers into a professional chef’s kitchen where every single pot and pan is hanging from a hook on the wall. It’s overwhelming, it’s a bit messy, but if you know what you’re doing, you can cook something incredible.
The PIA app is what I’d call 'busy.' It’s the tinkerer’s dream and the beginner’s nightmare. While NordVPN gives you a lovely map of the world, PIA gives you graphs, packet size settings, and a wall of server names with latency numbers next to them. It reminds me of the first time I tried to find an outlet adapter in a Bangkok night market—lots of options, half of them look terrifying, but the right one is in there if you look hard enough. I've found that for Lisbon digital nomads working from coworking spaces, having that extra control is actually a godsend when the shared Wi-Fi starts acting up.
The Learning Curve: Proximity vs. Performance
One thing I learned the hard way in a hotel in Porto earlier this year is that 'Auto-connect' is the enemy of the traveling gamer. If you let PIA choose for you, it might pick a server that’s great for privacy but terrible for ping. I spent twenty minutes wondering why my character was teleporting across the screen, only to realize I was routed through a server in Switzerland while trying to play on a UK-based game server. My bad. Once I manually picked a London server, the ping dropped back into the 'playable' green zone, and I could finally stop yelling at my screen.
The real secret weapon in PIA’s arsenal is the WireGuard protocol. Think of it like the difference between taking the slow, scenic bus through the hills of Chiapas and hopping on a direct flight. It’s just faster. When I’m in Mexico City, I’ve noticed that PIA’s US-based servers are shockingly quick, but trying to reach back to Europe for a gaming session is always going to be a struggle, no matter how good the VPN is. You can’t beat physics, though PIA tries its hardest by letting you tweak things like MTU (packet size)—something Surfshark doesn't even let you touch.
Speaking of Surfshark, it's usually my go-to for travelers with multiple laptops and streaming sticks because of the unlimited connections, but for raw, gritty gaming control, PIA wins. I remember one humid evening in Bangkok where the hotel Wi-Fi was so 'jittery' it felt like it was powered by a caffeinated squirrel. By diving into the PIA settings and lowering the packet size, I managed to stabilize the connection just enough to finish my match without a total disconnect. It’s those little 'tinker' moments that make the app’s busy interface worth the headache.
How PIA Compares for the Nomadic Gamer in 2026
If you're the type of person who just wants to click a button and have everything 'just work,' you might find PIA frustrating. CyberGhost VPN is much more 'plug and play' with its dedicated gaming and streaming servers, and they offer a massive 45-day money-back guarantee which is great if you're just on a short trip. But if you’re like me and you’ve set up a travel router for hotel room streaming more times than you can count, you’ll appreciate the depth PIA offers.
Here’s the reality of the 2026 VPN landscape for those of us balancing a gaming habit with a nomad lifestyle:
- Private Internet Access: The ultimate budget pick ($2.03) for people who don't mind a bit of manual setup. Great for gaming if you pick your servers carefully.
- ExpressVPN: Still the most reliable for unblocking the Beeb, but pricey at $6.67. If you want to know why ExpressVPN is the best BBC iPlayer unblocker, it's because they're constantly playing cat-and-mouse with the broadcasters.
- NordVPN: A solid middle-of-the-road choice ($3.39) that balances speed with a much prettier app.
- Surfshark: The hero for couples ($2.49) who both have too many gadgets and need everything protected at once.
The Verdict: Is it Fast Enough?
So, is Private Internet Access fast enough for gaming while traveling? Yes—with a giant asterisk. It’s fast enough if you’re willing to spend three minutes checking the latency list before you start. It’s fast enough if you’re okay with an app that looks like it was designed by a data scientist in a basement. And it’s definitely fast enough if you’re in a region with a lot of PIA servers, like the US or Europe.
I still get hit with the occasional 'I am not a robot' captcha when I'm just trying to Google a recipe for lunch, which is one of the small prices you pay for PIA’s aggressive privacy focus. But for $2.03 a month, I can handle a few pictures of traffic lights if it means my ping stays low enough to actually enjoy my downtime. If you're looking for a cheap, powerful tool and you aren't afraid of a few settings menus, Private Internet Access is a remarkably solid bet for the nomadic gamer. Just maybe don't try to play a high-stakes tournament on hotel Wi-Fi during a thunderstorm in Bangkok. Even the best VPN can't fix a squirrel-powered router.