Love Island: All Stars is coming back for a fourth series in 2027, and if you're spending the winter away from the UK, you'll have already found the catch: open ITVX from a flat in Sydney or a ski chalet in Val d'Isère and the app tells you it only works in the UK.

Here's why that happens, why the VPN app your mate swears by tends to give up halfway through the series, and the setup that keeps every episode playing for as long as you're away.

Love Island Is a Nightly Show, and the Internet Doesn't Wait

Most television is forgiving. Miss a drama on Tuesday and it's there on Thursday, untouched.

Love Island isn't built like that. It goes out six nights a week, and every recoupling, every text and every dumping is on your group chat before the credits have finished rolling. The last All Stars series ran to forty episodes in a little over five weeks, which is forty separate chances to have the ending spoiled by someone at home who watched it live.

So the goal abroad isn't just getting the app to open once. It's having it work at the moment each episode goes out in the UK, night after night, for the whole run.

What ITV Has Confirmed for 2027

ITV has confirmed a fourth series of All Stars for 2027. It hasn't put a launch date on it yet, and we won't guess one for you — the previous three series all ran through January and February, which is why the trade press is pencilling in the same winter slot, but until ITV says so that's an expectation rather than a date.

What is settled is where it lives: on ITV2, streamed live and on demand through ITVX. The last series was hosted by Maya Jama from a villa in South Africa, with Iain Stirling narrating. ITV has also opened applications for the main summer series, so 2027 looks like a two-villa year.

We'll update this page the moment ITV publishes a date. Until then, the sensible move is to have the setup tested before you travel, not scrambled together on launch night.

Why ITVX Won't Play Once You've Landed

ITVX is licensed to show its programmes inside the UK, and it enforces that by reading the IP address your connection presents before the stream starts. If that address belongs to a French, Spanish or Australian network, the episode doesn't begin.

Your login makes no difference. A UK ITVX account is still a UK account when you're on a ski season in the Alps; it's the connection underneath it that's changed. And because everything in the chalet shares the same connection, the block lands on the phone, the laptop and the television together.

We go through the mechanics in our guide to watching ITVX abroad without getting blocked, but the short version is that the address is the whole problem.

Why a VPN App Is the Wrong Tool for a Forty-Episode Run

A VPN app is the obvious first try, and it often works on night one. That's the trap.

The big consumer VPNs route thousands of people through the same shared data-centre servers, and ITVX has those address ranges on a blocklist that gets updated in batches. The server that played the launch can be dead by the first recoupling, and hopping to another UK server just moves you to the next range waiting to be blocked. On a show with an episode every night, you notice.

Live is the strictest case of all. ITV's live channels police location harder than catch-up does, and on a Freely television or box there's often nowhere to install a VPN app in the first place, so the usual route never even starts.

If you've already been through this with a paid subscription, our guide to why ExpressVPN, NordVPN and Surfshark stop working on UK streaming explains what you've been running into.

The Fix: a UK Residential IP on the Router

What works is changing the kind of address you present. A pre-configured SmartHub VPN router connects through a UK residential IP — an address issued on a real British broadband line, not a hosting range. To ITVX it reads as a household in Manchester or Bristol, because in every way that matters it is one.

Because the VPN runs on the router rather than on each gadget, the whole place is covered in one go. The chalet television, your phone, a flatmate's tablet and the Fire TV Stick you brought out all sit behind the same UK connection, with nothing to install and nothing to remember to switch on before the episode starts.

It doesn't hand you anything you don't already have. You bring your own ITVX account; the router only changes what your connection looks like.

Which Router for a Season Abroad

For a ski season, a year out or a working stint overseas, the SmartHub Travel (£130) is the natural pick. It's compact, and it can use the accommodation's existing Wi-Fi as its internet source, so you don't need a spare Ethernet socket or permission to go rummaging behind the landlord's router. Plug it in, join its network, and you're on a UK line.

If the watching happens at a family place you keep going back to — parents' villa, a shared flat abroad — the mains-powered SmartHub Home or Pro suits a fixed setup better. Our guide to choosing between the SmartHub routers walks through all four.

On the Big Screen: ITVX on a Freely Box

If you'd rather watch on the television than pass a phone round the sofa, both of the Freely boxes we supply run ITVX. The Netgem PLEIO and the Manhattan Aero carry ITV2 live alongside the on-demand app, so the villa telly behind the router behaves like one in Croydon.

The same setup carries the rest of ITV's reality slate too. Big Brother and I'm a Celebrity live on ITVX, so the box you set up for All Stars in the winter is already doing a job in the autumn.

Order Before You Fly, Not on Launch Night

Because we ship physical hardware, the trick is to sort it before you go. Have the router sent to your UK address with DPD, usually next-day after dispatch, and pack it with the ski boots — or have it delivered to your destination by UPS Express, which generally reaches Europe in one to three working days and keeps customs quick.

Either way it arrives pre-configured and tested, so the first episode isn't also the first test. With ITV yet to name a date, there's plenty of runway: order this autumn and it's working long before the villa doors open.

Watching Love Island Abroad: FAQs

Can I watch Love Island: All Stars abroad?

Not on an ordinary overseas connection. All Stars airs on ITV2 and streams on ITVX, and ITVX checks the IP address you arrive on before it plays anything. A VPN router carrying a UK residential IP makes your connection look like a British household, so your own ITVX account works abroad as it does at home.

When is Love Island: All Stars back?

ITV has confirmed a fourth All Stars series for 2027 but hasn't published a launch date yet. The previous three series all ran through January and February, which is why the trade press expects the same winter slot. We'll update this guide when ITV confirms.

Why does my VPN app keep getting blocked on ITVX?

Because of the address it hands you, not the app itself. Consumer VPNs push huge numbers of users through shared data-centre IP ranges, and ITVX recognises and blocks those ranges in batches. A UK residential IP is a real home-broadband address, so there's nothing on a blocklist to match.

Can I watch it on the villa TV rather than my phone?

Yes. The router covers every device behind it, so a Freely box like the Netgem PLEIO or Manhattan Aero, a Fire TV Stick or the television's own ITVX app all play on the UK connection at once, with nothing to install on any of them.

Final Thoughts

Love Island only really works as a shared thing — forty nights of the same conversation happening at the same time, in living rooms and group chats across the country. Being abroad shouldn't take you out of it.

A VPN router with a UK residential IP keeps you in the conversation, on the villa television as well as the phone, for the whole run and for everything else on ITVX after it.

Every Episode, Every Night, Wherever You're Staying