When you’re travelling, your mobile phone could be your best friend or your worst nightmare, depending on how well you prepare.
Before you go overseas, your first priority should be to equip your phone with the latest travel-tech that will make your life infinitely easier.
Unfortunately, most people go overseas utterly unprepared to handle the kinds of emergencies that could be prevented with a bit of pre-planning. With a few simple steps, you can turn your phone into a technological swiss-army knife.
Far too many travellers get to their destination and realise that they should get their phone sorted. Always remember to sort out your phone before you leave, not after. This begs the question: what should you actually do to your phone before you leave? Here are my tips.
1. Tracking/communication app
One of the most important things travellers should download is a friend-tracking app. If you’re travelling in a group, it’s handy to know where everyone is at any point in time. WhatsApp have simple feature where you can put everyone in a group chat and share your “live location”.
In the event of an emergency, you’ll need to know the exact location of your travel buddies. Keep your friends and family updated about where you are, and how you’re getting there. Even updating social media can be a fun way of letting people know where you are. It might even be worth emailing a travel itinerary to a loved one back home.
2. Portable phone charger
When your phone dies here in Australia, it isn’t a big deal. When it dies overseas, you could be in a lot of trouble. Portable phone chargers are a must. They’re cheap and incredibly useful!
3. Assistance apps
Speaking of useful, apps are your friend! Translation apps, currency conversion apps, budgeting apps, messaging apps, media apps, news apps and city guide apps are all worth downloading. The most important travel app however, in my opinion, is Google Maps.
4. Good smart phone
A good smart phone is a traveller’s best friend, so take care of it. It’s your map, flashlight, camera, music player, newspaper, clock, calculator, calendar, to-do list, television, e-reader and notepad all in one device. When you think about it, it’s really quite incredible.
Multiple functionalities increase convenience and reliance at the same time. If you lose your phone, you’re in a lot of trouble. Take care of it and get in the habit of double checking your phone is still in your pocket.
5. Data solution
One of the most difficult things travellers confront is how they’re going to connect to the internet and make calls overseas. For decades, this has been an unresolved problem that majorly inconveniences the average Australian traveller.
The options available to travellers just aren’t that great. You could buy a local SIM card at the airport of your destinations. But that means wasting time on your holiday and adding stress in choose the right plan. On top of that, you’ll have to buy a new local SIM with each country you visit.
You could buy a pocket WiFi device, but then you have to drag it around everywhere. And what if you lose it? You’ll have to pay for another one and you lose access to the internet whilst it’s lost. WiFi also consumers twice as much power than the regular 4G connectivity, that means you will end up losing your batter power faster.
Your final option is roaming with your local service provider, but this is often the most expensive option. When you return from your holiday, you’ll have a hefty bill waiting for you at home. I actually decided to start FLEXIROAM after I came home from a trip to India awaiting a phone bill that knocked my socks off.
For decades, the options that travellers have had are either super expensive or ridiculously inconvenient or both. This is the problem that I tried to overcome when I founded FLEXIROAM. We think we’ve invented the next generation global SIM card.
Using FLEXIROAM is simple. Just download the FLEXIROAM app from Apple app store or Google playstore. Upon signing up the app choose the data package you want, there are more than 800 internet plans depending on the destination, duration and quota that you want. The starter packs come with sim cards of all sizes that work on all phones including one that even sticks on to your existing SIM. Connectivity is seamless and the cost is a fraction of what other providers charge.
With FLEXIROAM, you never have to worry about being ripped off by sneaky mobile providers. You’ll never be surprised by how much you pay for overseas roaming, and you won’t have to waste time setting up a local SIM every time you travel. If you are on the latest iPhone XR, iPhone XL and iPhone 11, you can activate FLEXIROAM instantly by getting an eSim via the app.
With FLEXIROAM, you can enjoy data the moment the flight touches down without having to worry about roaming charges, enabling you to roam like home.
Most travellers aren’t prepared for emergencies at all but with the right planning, you can turn your mobile phone into a potential life saver.
