As mentioned previously, Internet cafes are more and more prevalent around the world, so there's usually reasonably-priced access nearby, depending on your destination.

On the other hand, we lugged our laptop to France for a one-month stay, and found to our delight that we could sign on at the Internet cafe one block away from our apartment for a mere Euro (unlimited time) per session.

This allowed us to compose e-mails at our apartment at our leisure, and the other big advantage I can think of is being able to use your own keyboard. The French and German ones, at least, have their own quirks, as they would say ours do, and amusingly one of the trickiest steps is learning to create a @.

Cheers,
Fredd