{"id":2928,"date":"2012-12-06T13:42:48","date_gmt":"2012-12-06T19:42:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adventureswithinreach.com\/travel\/?p=2928"},"modified":"2012-11-29T16:45:59","modified_gmt":"2012-11-29T22:45:59","slug":"using-cell-phones-internationally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adventureswithinreach.com\/travel\/2012\/12\/06\/using-cell-phones-internationally\/","title":{"rendered":"Using Cell Phones Internationally"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>International Calling<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>One thing I learned on a recent <a href=\"http:\/\/adventureswithinreach.com\/southern-africa\/\">trip to South Africa<\/a> is that I really, really like having a local cell phone that I can use to make phone calls with.<\/p>\n<p>It is hard to predict in advance if you will need to use a phone while traveling.\u00a0 In the end, I had to<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>call my hotel to ask for directions<\/li>\n<li>call my friend who I was meeting for dinner but was not receiving my text messages<\/li>\n<li>call my travel agent when there was a problem with my flight<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It may be worth getting the international calling and\/or data plan.\u00a0 Check with your cell phone provider for details.<\/p>\n<p><strong>iPhone<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I use an iPhone 4s at home, and I took it with on my trip.\u00a0 I primarily used my iPhone for directions\/maps and downloading boarding passes via email.<\/p>\n<p>I did not pay for an international calling plan for my trip because I didn\u2019t think it was worth the money.\u00a0 In Europe, it only saves about $.20\/minute.\u00a0 In Africa, it saves $1.00\/minute, but I am not likely to make calls even at the bargain $3.99\/minute!<\/p>\n<p>However, I did purchase an international data place for $25 for 100MB of data.\u00a0 I did use this on the my trip \u2013 although as sparingly as possible.<\/p>\n<p>I was able to send and receive text messages to and from U.S. phone numbers.\u00a0 However, I was only able to receive text messages for international phones &#8212; my text messages never got through to a non-U.S. phone number.<\/p>\n<p>Contact your provider before you leave as I was able to get a signal outside the U.S., but other people were not.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Skype<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Skype is a great option for calling home if you have a smart phone or laptop.\u00a0 With Skype, you can instant message, call, and even video call.\u00a0 You have to<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Have an account with Skype<\/li>\n<li>Your friends\/family have to have an account (or you call land\/cell phones for a small fee, which is much, much cheaper that calling direct)<\/li>\n<li>Download the free app<\/li>\n<li>Be on WiFi to use<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Blackberry \/ Sim Cards<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I had an old Blackberry that I was able to \u201cunlock\u201d from AT&amp;T.\u00a0 Then I got a local sim card, which costs a small fee for calls.\u00a0 I got a Toggle, which is good in Europe, and I have used a World Sim in the U.K.\u00a0 I also just purchased a sim card at the Vodaphone store in the Johannesburg Airport.\u00a0 You can also get a cheap phone in your local country.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.togglemobile.co.uk\/\">http:\/\/www.togglemobile.co.uk\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.worldsim.com\/tariffsmulti.aspx\">https:\/\/www.worldsim.com\/tariffsmulti.aspx<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>International Calling One thing I learned on a recent trip to South Africa is that I really, really like having a local cell phone that I can use to make phone calls with. It is hard to predict in advance &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/adventureswithinreach.com\/travel\/2012\/12\/06\/using-cell-phones-internationally\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel-advice"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Xxsg-Le","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adventureswithinreach.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adventureswithinreach.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adventureswithinreach.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adventureswithinreach.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adventureswithinreach.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2928"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/adventureswithinreach.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2945,"href":"https:\/\/adventureswithinreach.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928\/revisions\/2945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adventureswithinreach.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adventureswithinreach.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adventureswithinreach.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}