Phone Home? No Thanks
When I studied abroad in northeast China, we would spend hours waiting for our Hotmail or Yahoo accounts to load up, and every other week I'd use a phone card to call home (and then hang up once someone answered so they could call back; it was cheaper that way). That's how we kept in touch. In my day (oh so very many eight years ago) we didn't have cells glued to our ears while walking around the quad, and there was no reason to do so when studying abroad.
Turns out that the current generation of students, whom I thought would at all costs continue their phone dependence while studying abroad, have the same idea. A study conducted by two study-abroad umbrella organizations (StudyAbroad.com and IIEPassport.org) found that six in 10 students polled say they will stay in touch via email; only 28% indicated they plan to use their cell phones. (That's good news for whomever is footing the phone bill, and there's no worrying about time differences, either.) About 9.5% of those polled said that while abroad they would communicate via their pages on social networking sites such as MySpace.com and Facebook.com; 2.5% would use their personal blogs.
But if you're one of those folks who just can't be without a phone when traveling, or a parent looking to make sure you can hear Junior's voice in any time zone, check out this piece that just ran in our Way To Go issue on staying in touch while abroad.
By Anne McDonough |
February 6, 2007; 9:41 AM ET
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Anne McDonough
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Posted by: Giles | February 6, 2007 11:19 AM
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I use a service called globalphone (http://www.gphone.com/) that allows me to make international calls cheaply through toll-free numbers without the need to buy calling cards. No monthly fee, and something like 3c/min for transatlantic calls. (It's enabled on my US cellphone, too.) That's the easiest I know.
For Skype calling I use my Wi-Fi-enabled Pocket PC (mine happens to be a Dell, but it should work for most) and whatever free Wi-Fi connection I can find (coffee shops are good). No need to carry a real computer.