The longer the trip, the more important keeping in touch with everyone back home is, if not for yourself, then for the people (my mother) you leave behind. When you’re traveling abroad, international calls can be ridiculously expensive and not all service provider’s work in foreign countries. If you can unlock your phone, you may be able to get a SIM for a pay as you go plan in the country if you intend to be abroad for a substantial amount of time, but even then, calling internationally is not financially viable.
If you have access to the internet, there are several sites and programs available. When I studied abroad, most students used Skype to video chat back home. It’s a fairly easy to use, free program if you’re chatting from one computer to another. You can also use Skype to make inexpensive calls to landlines in the states. Download it here.
VOIP functions like magic jack require you to pay a fee for the USB connector and a yearly bill, but you can make unlimited calls to any landline within the U.S. for free using your internet connection. If you don’t have your computer with you, or you don’t have the privacy to use these kinds of features, there are still a couple of options out there.
General social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace can be useful tools. I found twitter to be particularly helpful, and when I didn’t have a lot of time to talk to each person individually, or write an e-mail, I could quickly update twitter and all of my followers could have basic information about what I was doing. I set my mom up with a twitter, and had it send my updates to her phone, so she could get info about where I was at and what I was doing.
Blogging is a pretty popular option as well, and it can work to share things with friends back home as well as serve as a reference for your own memories when you get back! Photo sharing sites like Flickr can also be useful for sharing pictures before you get back home, and can serve as a backup if something happens to your camera.
Oh mothers, aren’t they fun?
These tips are really useful, even for people that aren’t studying abroad — perhaps for students that are just going to college or doing a summer internship out of state so that their friends and family can remain involved in their life even when they aren’t there all the time.
By: Alex on 30/03/2010
at 11:35
Lol; Twitter….
I love Skype. One of my friends is in Japan right now teaching English and we communicate over Skype. It’s so nice and it is amazing how technology allows us to do that now.
The thing with the phones sucks cuz when I was in Ireland back in high school, my credit card wasn’t working and I had to call my Mom with the time difference to settle it. That was a pain in the ass. No money and I’m in a different country. And like 14 years old. Love it. That’s why I’d rather do something over the internet rather than communicate via a phone. And with Skype, that’d probably be the best option.
By: histmk on 30/03/2010
at 11:35
In Spain, you can go to any Movistar or Vodafone store and purchase a little pre-paid phone to call the U.S. for really cheap.
The phones themselves (the most basic ones) cost about $20, and you can put as much money as you want on them! That’s how I called my family back home, I think it cost about 10 cents/minute.
I didn’t have a laptop so I couldn’t use Skype, but a lot of my friends did, and you can’t beat free…if you don’t have access to the internet, though, pre-paid phones are the norm throughout Europe and they’re fairly reasonable…
By: missmollymack on 30/03/2010
at 11:36