Public WiFi with no WPA, using VPN

Privacy Questions
1

I am forced to travel internationally for a while. And though I try to use my own mobile network, things are spotty at times. I am forced to use my hotel’s WiFi as a result. Completely unsecured, no WPA or even WEP. Bluck.

Anyway, wanting to make sure I am secure against tampering/eavesdropping/malware.

I am assuming that proper VPN usage would effectively protect my device from the dangers of public WiFi?

To clarify:
-I use GrapheneOS or Fedora Linux (firewalld is running in standard config).
-I use a PG recommended VPN with kill switch on both devices.
**Outside of having to sign into the WiFi over http, I don’t ever leave the VPN connection. In GrapheneOS this is handled automatically. In Linux I have to kill the VPN briefly, sign in, then fire up the VPN again.
-My devices are reasonably up to date

Should that cover it?

**yes I am aware that in a perfect situation I don’t take personal devices internationally. Not possible right now to get a burner device, I don’t have time to set up, nor the money to buy a 1-time then trash device. So I need to use my personal devices safely

2

The only difference with unsecured WiFi is your connection between your device and the access point won’t be encrypted (unless they use WPA3). Really there’s no extra risk, you should still be using https and whatnot like normal. Mostly a password is gonna protect the owner of the network from people they don’t want on their network, but you aren’t the network owner so it’s not really relevant to you.

There is the possibility someone tries to connect to your device but if you’ve got your firewall set up shouldn’t be a problem.

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