It’s important to stay in contact while you travel the world, but your usual mobile service may be very expensive when you use it internationally. There are services such as holidayphone.com that provide affordable phone solutions for people to use when they travel.
With local data packages, travelers may get 1 GB of data for the same price they usually pay for 1 MB. They can access the Internet and use their phone the same way they do at home without the huge bill. They can navigate with GPS, upload photos and much more. The average savings that this type of mobile phone gets is up to 97 percent per minute compared to their usual operator and much more for sending and receiving data.
Some of the services available with phones for travel are:
• Cheap Internet, calls and texts
• Keep the usual phone number without roaming
• Get a local number before departure
• Pre-activated with no contracts
Before you start your trip, you need to make sure that your phone will allow another operator. If you are in a contract with your mobile provider, your phone may be locked in to your operator. You can call and ask them to unlock it, which many will do for free.
Make sure your phone will support the frequency of your destination. You can get any size SIM card that will work with your phone including iPhone models and older phones. These SIMs are provided by local operators, so you should be able to top them up during your trip. However, there are some countries that don’t allow top-ups. The language on the local SIM will be the local language of that country, but most companies that provide holiday mobile phones give all the instructions in English including how to start, top-up and troubleshoot.
If you travel with a partner or in a group, you can use your local numbers to call each other, which is much cheaper that if you used your regular operator. You would normally pay the international costs for both calling and receiving calls.
In some countries, it is required by law for anyone who has a mobile phone to give identification before getting a SIM card. Most travel mobile phone companies will handle this for you on a secure system. Also, the Internet should work on most local SIMs, but you should check the instructions you received with your SIM to see if you need to configure a different APN to use while you’re traveling. You will get instructions for how to set a new APN.
There is no reason to pay huge fees for staying in contact with your friends and family while you enjoy international travel destinations. Look for a mobile phone company that provides low-cost travel phones.