Maintaining contact with friends and family when you’re travelling overseas is essential if you want to be sure people don’t worry unnecessarily. It also gives you the opportunity to share the joys of new experiences and discoveries as you encounter them, rather than waiting and trying to go though everything when you return. While modern technology has made it possible to remain in constant contact from virtually any corner of the globe, there are still a few tips to bear in mind.
Check your phone options
Before you head anywhere for any length of time, make sure your phone is fit for purpose. Your contract may provide you with a certain number of minutes that you can use abroad, as well as a data plan and both of these will be essential in the case of an emergency.
If you have had your phone for a while, it’s battery life may have started to decline. Depending on where you are travelling to, you might not have regular access to chargers. If you plan on using your phone a lot, to listen to music or read books, for example, it might be worth considering replacing it before you depart. Another reason to head to the phone shop is that you may find other companies have better deals when it comes to international travel than the plan you are currently on.
If you are locked into a particular provider, you won’t have the option of swapping out the sim card for a local one in order to take advantage of local phone charges in your destination. If this is the case, the best option might be to purchase a second phone. You don’t need to spend a lot of money as you only want the most basic model – just so long as it’s unlocked, has decent battery life and works in country you are heading for.
Most of the time it’s likely that you’ll be making use of Wi-Fi connection rather than using phone data, but it’s a good idea to have data as a back-up, even on a pay-as-you-go basis, as you never know where you might end up or how bad the signal might be there. Having a data plan means you can get alerts and messages wherever you are, rather than waiting until you reach the next café with Wi-Fi.
Before you head off, use your phone to take photographs of your passport and other essential documents, so you have a separate record of the information. Store the pictures on your phone but also in the cloud as a back-up. Don’t forget to register online too so you can be contacted in an emergency.
Think beyond social media
Keeping your feeds up to date with photographs, videos and little descriptions about your adventure is a great way of reaching out to lots of people at once and also makes it easy for them to add comments on your activities.
The one disadvantage of social media is that, unless people actively seek out your feed very now and then, they may not see everything that you post. If you want to have a little more control over this and also help your friends and family members to separate out your content from everything else they are being sent, you might want to consider starting your own blog.
There are plenty of low-cost and no-cost blogging platform options out there and the end result can be a far more entertaining and comprehensive record of your travels. All the information will be in one place and this can be especially useful if you find yourself sometimes posting photographs to one platform or another rather than being consistent.
Of course, you can still use your social media feeds to promote your blog by posting a link each time you make a new entry, but having all your information in one single place will make reading about your adventures and seeing the photographs you have taken a far more enjoyable experience for everyone.
Go old school
Technology means many of the barriers to communication that existed in the past have been overcome. Despite this, there is something extremely personal and special about receiving communication via snail mail. Taking the time out to write a letter of a postcard provides the recipient with a physical connection to the places you have been, as well as a tiny snapshot of your life at that particular moment.
Sending a postcard is a great way of letting people know where you are and giving them a taste of what you are experiencing, but hunting through local shops for the best designs can sometimes feel a little tacky and the selection of pictures available might not always reflect your personal taste.
It can also be problematic finding a place to purchase the right stamps, so you make sure your card gets where you want it to go. Thanks to digital technology, you can take a picture of yourself outside a popular tourist site or while engaged in a fun local activity, turn your photograph into a postcard and have it despatched that same day, all with only a few clicks of your mouse.
Choose your time
If you have parents or other family members who are worried about you, make a regular date to get in touch with them and bring them up to date. This only acts as great reassurance but ensure that everyone is available at a time that suits them. This can be especially important if you are travelling somewhere that has a different time zone to your home.
Fixing a regular time slot also makes it a part of your permanent travel schedule that you know you have to deal with in advance. This makes it a little less likely that you’ll get carried away with other activities and forget to get in touch when you said you would.
Arranging to speak to a group of people in this way rather than one single person is a far more efficient use of your time and means you won’t have to repeat the same stories of your adventures over and over again.
Watch your money
If you are posting your adventures to public social media accounts, remember that not every looking at them will have good intentions. You may be broadcasting the fact you are away to burglars or other criminals. Another reason to stay in touch with friends while you travel is so that they can keep an eye on things back home for you.
It’s also a good idea to tell your bank that you are going to be out of the country for a while. This is especially important if you are travelling to multiple destinations which include places where fraud is more prevalent. Failure to notify the bank in advance may mean your card is suspended for a short time the first time you try to make a purchase or try to withdraw cash, and this could cause all sorts of complications.
If your bank is aware of the date you plan to return from your travels, they will know that any transactions that take place outside the country after that date are likely to be suspect. Although you will almost always get your money back in such situations, it’s impossible to know how long you might have to wait for a refund and this could cause you financial difficulties in the short term.
Meet them half way
If you want to meet up with people during your travels, try to be creative. It’s not always necessary to travel all the way back to where you started – you may be able to meet somewhere halfway or much closer to where you are, especially if the person you are meeting up with is travelling too.
If you can plan well enough in advance, you may be able to get extremely reasonable deals to a nearby location. Many budget airline, especially those operating in Europe, often have sales in which you can purchase flights for just a few dollars. If you don’t want to stay overnight, you might even be able to get a deal that brings you back on the very same day, or take a lost-cost train or coach to another nearby destination and fly back from there.
With a little luck, you can not only catch up with friends or family, but also see a little more on your travels at the same time.
