6 Great Ways to Stay In Touch While Traveling

6 Great Ways to Stay In Touch While Traveling

By Susan Gerle

It is always a concern to try and stay in touch with family and friends while traveling to different parts of the globe.

1.Disposable Cell Phones

Many countries sell disposable cell phones now. If you plan to be in the same region of Mexico for a few months, you can go into a local convenience store and buy a throw-away phone for approximately $20 that you can buy international minutes for. It may be expensive for local calls (but cheap to text) but there are great plans for calling the US or Canada through the local phone company. You will need someone to help you translate the instructions though if you don’t speak the local language.

Another option is check to see if you can by a new SIM card for your phone in the country you are traveling in.

2.Local Phone Cards

I always carry a phone card with me when I travel in the US or Canada. It can be used for short or long calls. The only thing to be aware of is cards might expire anywhere from 30 days to 6 months from the first use.

3.International Phone Cards

Pretty well every country sells phone cards to make calls overseas. The hardest part is to find one that has an English voice option to follow instructions. Check before you leave an English speaking country to see if they have a card available that can be used throughout Europe for instance. Otherwise, if you drop into an international hostel, there is a good chance they will sell phone cards.

4.Email

Of course, email is a very common way to stay in touch. Many countries offer Internet cafes for travelers. In some places, Internet or wifi may be quite expensive. If you can find a facility that caters to the locals, it will be a lot cheaper. It may take a few minutes to get used to the keyboard and figure out how to put in your password if you have a # sign or underscore, for instance. Remember, the keyboards are set up for that country. It’s a good idea to set up an easy password before you leave home.  You might also want to set up a yahoo or hotmail address too.  Many local servers will possibly be difficult to access overseas.

It’s also a good idea to have Windows XP programming on your computer.  Many of the countries won’t necessarily have technicians that can work on newer operating systems if your computer crashes..

5.Skype

Skyping is still one of the easiest ways of communicating from anywhere in the world. There is no charge if you have it downloaded on your own laptop, ipad, or phone.  Set up accounts for skype before you leave home for your holiday. The great thing about skype is how easy it is to do conference calls with your whole family, no matter where you are. You can also call worldwide for a very cheap cost per minute from your phone or laptop to a phone.

6.Social Networking

Keep up to date on facebook or twitter or install kik for free texting.  There are many ways to communicate with people all over the world. With ipods and ipads and androids and laptops it’s easy to stay in touch.

Do some research before you leave to find out what is going to be the best way to stay in touch. You are never too far away!