Traceroute Traceroute is a simple tool to show the network route from your computer to a remote destination. It does this by utilizing the IP protocols time to live (TTL) field in order to elicit an ICMP TIME_EXCEEDED response from each gateway along the path. If you just want to know how long it takes to get between your computer and a remote destination, it is much better to use the ping tool, since that will send more packets and will be much better at showing fluctuations in the round-trip time taken (see outputs below). That is why I will be using a computer in Austin, TX, U.S.A., which is using a VPN in Amsterdam, Netherlands, as this helps highlight the difference. Time To Live (TTL) The TTL field can be confusing because, with respect to ping and traceroute, it does not actually represent "time" but the number of hops the packet can traverse before dying. Having a TTL ensures that packets dont somehow keep traversing the net in an infinite loop. TTL with regards to ...