Staying Connected when Traveling Abroad

A lot of people ask me for tips/tricks if they’ve never been overseas. Since I’ve crossed the pond many times, I thought I would detail out some of the ways I stay connected. It doesn’t have to be this complicated, but hey, I’m a geek so I don’t mind…

Phone/Mobile Email/Twitter

Since I’m on the Sprint network here in the US it means my phone won’t work overseas. This is good and bad. It’s good because it means I won’t rack up HUGE overseas roaming bills for voice and data. It’s bad because it means I need to have a secondary (unlocked) phone for use in Europe. Sprint’s network is CDMA, all of Europe is GSM. Because of all this I have a secondary GSM phone and when I’m in a particular county, I just buy a local pre-paid SIM (I’m getting quite a collection of local SIM cards). So what happens if someone calls my US cell number when I’m abroad? Through the use of forwarding and Skype I’ve worked out a method…

1. I have a “SkypeIn” number. This is a local (Columbus) number that anyone can call and it will ring to my Skype.
2. Before I leave the US, I forward my cell phone to my SkypeIn number
3. Skype has a great feature called call forwarding. With Skype call forwarding if someone calls you on Skype and you don’t answer, it will forward the call to the number you specify (in my case, I put in my current number for the country I’m in).
4. In summary, if someone calls my US cell number here’s the route: ->Sprint->Skype->Local#

Data access has been a bit more difficult to figure out. While my GSM phone does run Windows Mobile and I can get my email on it, the local SIM’s don’t always provide easy access to “data”. The best I’ve found so far when in the UK is Vodafone. I know the settings for Vodafone’s data access and when in the UK they only charge 1 pound/day for (mostly) unlimited data access. I’ve found that their roaming data rates in other countries (like Germany) aren’t too bad as well. My upcoming trip will test the rates in The Netherlands (during my layover) and in Russia.

Twitter isn’t always as easy. If I can get a data plan when in a local country then I’m good because I have PockeTwit installed on my GSM phone. If I can’t figure out data access then my Twitter is just one way because Twitter doesn’t allow “send” to text except in the US, Canada and a few other countries not in Europe. This means that when I can’t get a data connection on my phone I can send Tweets, just not receive them.  It’s very frustrating…

What to Pack

People who have never gone to Europe have heard all sorts of horror stories about the “power conversion” issues. People always ask me if they need to buy a “converter” to convert the “European” power to “US” power. While that may have been the case several years ago, the good news is that today almost all modern electronic are “dual power”, meaning they work in the US and abroad. All you have to do is check (presumably before you plug that thing into a European electrical socket). Dual power electronics will have a label on them that should say something like INPUT: 100-240v 50-60Hz, this means you’re good to go and all you need now is an adapter, you know, the thing that allows you to plug that 2 or 3 prong US plug into a UK/European socket. These are pretty cheap and can be found at pretty much all airports, Radio Shacks or other electronics stores.

TIP: To cut down on the number of adapters you need (if you have a lot of electronics like I do), I find it best to travel with a US extension cord. This way, I use 1 adapter to plug in the extension cord (or power strip) and then I have 3-8 US sockets available for my electronic gear.