Do you actually need a VPN for HBO Max?
If what you want is the US shelf from another country, the honest answer is that a VPN is the wrong tool, and the next section shows HBO Max saying so in its own words. But if you are a subscriber who travels, a VPN earns its keep in ordinary ways: it encrypts your traffic on hotel, cafe and airport Wi-Fi, it keeps services that dislike foreign logins, such as banking and email, behaving as if you were at home, and it covers the laptop, the phone and the kids' tablets on one subscription.
Things also break at inconvenient hours when you are abroad. Both of our picks run 24/7 support over live chat and email, so there is a real person to talk to at 2am: NordVPN and Surfshark both answer around the clock.
What HBO Max's own help pages say about VPNs
HBO Max does not hide its position; it publishes it. Its availability page explains that when you see the region message, the reason may be that "your IP address might be blocked or is incorrectly identifying your location".
And the fix it prescribes is the interesting part. Its troubleshooting, in the help centre's own words: "Disable your VPN, proxy, or anonymization service so that your IP address is not blocked." The other steps it suggests are restarting your network devices and, if the problem continues, contacting your internet provider or HBO Max support.
Read that back once. The pages selling VPNs as the key to HBO Max are selling a tool the service's own manual tells you to switch off. That does not make a VPN useless while you travel; it makes it a tool for everything else you do online, with a pause button for when you sit down to watch.
Recommended VPNs for travel
NordVPN, our pick for a trip
It is the one for you if you are covering yourself, or you and a partner, and want something simple to run and easy to forget about. One plan covers 10 devices, and the apps are quick to install and easy to switch off and on as you need. Plans run by the month, the year or over two years, all with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Surfshark, our pick for a household
It is the one for you if one subscription needs to cover everyone. Connections are unlimited, so every phone, laptop and tablet in the family runs on the same plan at once, at home and abroad. It sells the same three terms and adds bonus months on the longer two, with the same 30-day money-back guarantee.
Server networks and speeds
Speed for a traveller mostly comes down to distance: the closer the server, the shorter the detour your traffic takes, and the less speed you give up. Connecting to a server in the country you are actually in is the right default, and it is all most travellers ever need.
Encryption always costs a little throughput, but on a decent connection there is usually plenty left for streaming in high definition. We do not publish speed numbers here because they vary by country, server and time of day; the 30-day money-back guarantees on NordVPN and Surfshark are the honest way to test them on the connections you will actually use.
How to choose between them
The differences that matter fit in one table, and the last row is the one the rest of the internet leaves out.
| Feature | NordVPN | Surfshark |
|---|
| 1 month | $14.99 | $16.45 |
| 1 year plan, total upfront | $65.88 (12 months billed) | $50.85 (15 months billed) |
| 2 year plan, total upfront | $94.23 (27 months billed) | $67.23 (27 months billed) |
| Devices per plan | 10 | Unlimited |
| Audited no-log policy | Yes (2025) | Yes (2025) |
| Money-back guarantee | 30 days | 30 days |
| Guarantees the US HBO Max library abroad | No | No |
Priced per month, NordVPN wins only on the one-month plan. Commit for a year or two and Surfshark is the cheaper subscription, and the unlimited device allowance is the deciding factor for families.
Setting up before you travel
Do the setup at home, on Wi-Fi you trust, before the airport. Install NordVPN or Surfshark on each device, sign in, and connect once to a nearby server to confirm everything works. Then open HBO Max with the VPN on: if you meet the region message, practise the fix now, which is pausing the VPN while you watch and re-enabling it afterwards. The test of a travel VPN is how gracefully you can turn it off, watch what you want, and turn it back on; five minutes on your sofa beats troubleshooting on hotel Wi-Fi.
Two more pre-flight checks. First, downloads: on the Standard and Premium plans you can save shows and films to a phone or tablet and "watch them when you're offline", though unwatched downloads expire after 30 days, a started title gives you 48 hours to finish, and "Select episodes and movies aren't available to download." The Basic with Ads plan includes no downloads at all, so check your plan before you rely on this. Second, if you pay for HBO Max in the EU or EEA and are staying within it, portability rules mean your subscription follows you with no VPN involved.
Final recommendation
For a trip measured in weeks, NordVPN is the pick if you are covering yourself or a couple and want something simple to run, with a 30-day guarantee that outlasts most holidays. For a household, Surfshark covers unlimited devices on one subscription.
Buy either one for what it actually does: an encrypted connection on networks you do not control, and your everyday services working away from home. Neither guarantees the US HBO Max library from abroad, whatever other pages promise. HBO Max's own help centre tells you to switch a VPN off when the region message appears, and this page will not pretend otherwise.
