How to change your IP and location with a VPN

How does a VPN change your location?

A VPN, or Virtual Private Network, changes your apparent location by sending your traffic through a server in another location. Here’s how that works:

1. Your VPN app lets you select a server anywhere in the world where your VPN service has servers. NordVPN, for example, has servers in 59 different countries (in some, you can also select the city).
2. When you connect to the server you’ve selected, your app will form an encrypted tunnel around all of the traffic coming from your device. That VPN tunnel will lead straight to your selected server, which will decrypt your traffic and send it to its final destination. However, your IP address – which helps determine your location and identity – will now be that of the server. Yours will be hidden from the world.
3. That’s it – anyone using your IP address to discover your location will now see your location as the location of the server. You can still use the app and change your VPN server to new locations whenever you want. To check if your VPN location changer is working, you can see your online location here.

Why would I want to change my location?

Anyone who knows your public IP can find out a lot about you with just a simple IP lookup. So, there are many ways to take advantage of an IP location changer.

• Comparing prices while shopping: Some sites offer different prices to visitors from different countries. By using a VPN to change your location, you can hop around the globe and look for the best price.
• Hiding your identity from trackers: If you’re connecting from home, your location is an important part of tracking your identity online. By hiding your location, you can throw off annoying online services that keep trying to track your location.
• Practicing freedom of speech: Hiding your IP address is a necessary step for any privacy-conscious internet user. It's especially important for journalists working on sensitive topics or anyone else who’s concerned about their location being discoverable online.

These are just the benefits when it comes to changing your location. Using a VPN is one of the most important ways to stay secure and private online. Click here to find out more about how VPNs work and why they’re useful.

If you decide to look for a free IP changer online, keep in mind that most of them will record and sell your data. Maintaining a VPN service is not cheap. So, if a provider is offering you to change your IP online for free, don’t trust it. They will either scam you or collect your data and sell it to the highest bidder. If you want to stay safe, stay away from free VPNs.

Our app makes it easy to change VPN servers quickly – we have servers in 60 countries to change your IP location.

Can only a VPN change my location?

There are a couple of other ways to change your IP address and thus hide your location.

• Using a proxy service: In general, it works much like a VPN. A proxy acts as a middleman that connects to the website for you and sends it the proxy's address instead of yours. The most significant difference is that, unlike a VPN, a proxy doesn’t encrypt your connection. By definition, a proxy has to change your IP address, and that's it. VPN services generally offer more features as well.
• Using Tor (The Onion Router): It works by sending your communications through a number of nodes around the world. Each node only knows the node that came before it and the one after it, so it’s difficult to trace the original connection back to you. It also usually has a strong negative effect on your internet speed, as the Tor network usually sends you through at least three nodes.

While proxy and Tor are alternatives to a VPN IP changer, they also come in the form of VPN features. For example, NordVPN has proxy extensions for Chrome and Firefox. Unlike most proxy services, they also encrypt your browsing data. And you can always use NordVPN’s Onion Over VPN feature to connect to the Tor network. So you can have the best of all worlds just by using a VPN.

How to change your IP address with a VPN

When you use a virtual private network to change your location, you also change your IP in the process. Here are the steps you need to take to change your IP:

1. Get a VPN subscription. You can find NordVPN subscription plans here.
2. Download the VPN app to your device.
3. Launch the application and enter your credentials to log in.
4. Click the “Quick connect” button to connect to the best remote server in seconds.
5. That’s it, you have changed your IP address and location!

If you want to change your VPN server to, say, USA, just tap the country pin, and NordVPN’s smart algorithm will find the fastest server available.

There are other ways to use NordVPN as a location changer as well. You can install it onto your router or download our proxy extension for Chrome or Firefox. In fact, it supports almost any device, and you can even install NordVPN on your router. There are plenty of NordVPN reviews out there that you can use to make up your mind.

Try changing your location – it's easy with NordVPN's 30-day money-back guarantee.