Travel Connections

Maintaining connections with home when you travel is easier than ever. Calling cards, cell-phones, e-mail, satelite phones, and better phone lines everywhere are making it a smaller world, for better or worse. Here are some tips on how to stay in touch - when you want to.

E-Mail: The Travel Connections Champ

Almost every library in the United States now has internet access. When we are traveling around the country, we regularly stop in small towns to use this free service. We check our E-mail and even check on our bank accounts. In other countries, it is even easier to find internet access than here. That is because computers are often too expensive for the average person, so there is a demand for cheap internet access. As a result, in places like Quito, Ecuador, there is an internet cafe on almost every corner.

Both Hotmail and Yahoo still offer free e-mail accounts. Sign up now, if you don't have one yet. In this way, wherever you are in the world, your friends and family have a way to contact you with important news. It is also a way for you to contact them. Oddly enough, even though the internet largely operates by way of phone lines, it is more reliable than phone service in many countries.

Snail Mail

There are times when you will have to use the Post Office during your trip. Have envelopes pre-addressed and stamped, if you know you'll be writing family, friends, or whoever. It is often easy to find a mail box, but a hassle to find stamps and envelopes. If you need something sent to you while on a trip (in the U.S.) have it addressed to your name, then "general delivery," and the name and zip code of the city where you'll be in a few days. Your package should be waiting for you at the post office when you arrive.

Phone Cards

A good phone card is a great help whenyou are traveling in the United States. The best are not even cards any longer. They are accounts that you can recharge on the internet. The one we are using at the moment is Tel3Advantage. It costs us just 2.9 cents per minute to call anywhere in the U.S., with no connection charge. It's only 15 cents to call my wife's family in Ecuador (It cost me over $2 per minute just 4 years ago). The only extra charge is 50 cents if you use a pay phone, which is mandated by law for all cards now.

The way you use these accounts is to fund them on the internet, using any credit card. You can start with $20 on most. Then you get a toll-free number to call, and an account number (usually your home phone number), and a 4-digit PIN number. To place a call, you dial the toll free number, and when prompted, enter your account number, PIN, and number you are calling. This may be a lot of buttons to push, but then you can call Paris, France for 3 cents per minute. That's cheap! Just get on the internet to recharge your account from time to time. You'll never have an unexpected phone bill, since you pay in advance.

Other Travel Connections Tips

Just in case you lose important phone numbers, like the one to call when your credit card is stolen, or the number of the U.S. Embassy where you are going, try the following. E-mail a list of important information and numbers to yourself. Also e-mail yourself a copy of your passport, and any other important documents. Then, if you need these things, they will be available to you in any internet cafe in the world.

Staying in touch can be a mixed blessing. I personally find it less than comforting to have the potential protection of a cell phone with us when my brothers and I go into the Canadian wilderness. The price is constant calls going both ways, and all the worries that could have been forgotten until the trip was over. So my final tip is to call friends and family when they aren't home, and leave a nice message on their answering machines. That way, they know you are okay. If they need to contact you, they can e-mail you.