How to Set Up Your Phone for International Travel

You're getting ready to travel abroad, and you've put off figuring out how y'all'll have telephone service while you're gone. What to do and how to do it? There are four questions yous need to respond before making a decision near your phone apply abroad:

• Will your telephone work in the region to which you're traveling?
• Exercise you lot have an unlocked phone?
• Does your carrier offering service, ordinarily through a partner, in the region where you lot're traveling?
• How much does a local SIM card cost?

If you don't know the answer to the first three questions, the easiest way to find out is to call your phone carrier or stop past a shop.

If you'd rather do some homework, let me warn you that figuring out the answer to the commencement question in particular is a royal pain in the ass if you actually want to understand the technical details behind it. All you really need to know is that there are two standards in mobile phone service: GSM and CDMA (you could learn what makes them different, if you're so inclined).

GSM is used pretty much all over the world. CDMA is thankfully falling out of fashion pretty chop-chop, so if your phone is fairly new, you don't have to worry. Simply if you do have a CDMA-only telephone, information technology'south going to cause problems when you travel. CDMA is really only used in the U.s.a. for Sprint, Verizon, and U.S. Cellular phones (AT&T and T-Mobile use GSM). If your phone uses GSM, or both GSM and CDMA, you lot're probably fine. If your phone is CDMA-only, information technology may non work outside the US, and yous should look into using a different phone. There are a few options, and I'll get to those in a moment.

As far as whether your phone is unlocked or can exist unlocked, that usually comes downward to request your carrier. If y'all are on a contract, there's a good chance your phone is locked. There are other reasons a phone might be locked, too. Sometimes you tin can unlock a phone by yourself by going to your carrier'south website and following some instructions, but y'all'll salve yourself heaps of time if you can driblet by a store or call the support team and let them handle it for yous.

Does your carrier offer service where you're going? Once again, inquire a representative at your carrier's store, on the client support telephone line, or try searching the carrier's site. A secondary question to this, is will the service be whatsoever adept where y'all're traveling? Dissimilar phones and different mobile service providers utilize unlike frequencies. In some countries, a foreign phone will get very slow data, like 2G or 3G but. Trying to effigy it out yourself is a crapshoot depending on a number of factors.

All these questions are actually designed to help you figure out your options. So permit's get to the options.

one. Bring Your Phone, Pay for Roaming

A depression-hassle but high-fee solution is to bring your phone and pay for roaming charges. This solution is cracking for very short trips. This option is by and large only workable if you answered aye to the first three questions above. I notwithstanding recommend calling your carrier before yous get to brand sure roaming will work.

ii. Bring Your Phone, Pay for a Packet

If y'all answered yeah to the start iii questions, some other selection is to bring your phone and purchase some kind of international data package. Carriers have all kinds of plans. AT&T currently has a $10 per day option that but charges you for days on which y'all use it. The $10-a-24-hour interval programme is a smashing pick if yous're traveling to a place where you may not demand phone service at all, but you're not certain. You don't have to use it, but information technology's at that place if you need it.

3. Bring Your Telephone, Apply a New SIM Carte du jour

Phone service is extraordinarily cheap in some countries, so take advantage of those prices by purchasing a local SIM card when you make it. A SIM card is cipher more a picayune scrap that goes inside your phone. Information technology's what lets your phone make calls and use the cyberspace. For this option to work, make sure you answered yeah to the beginning two questions higher up.

In some countries (many in Southeast Asia, for example), you tin can spend $10 to $20 for a bulky amount of data, calls, and SMS texts. In places where this option is pop, you typically come across kiosks at the aerodrome that sell SIM cards, and the clerks in that location can install one for you. Take advantage of that service so you can brand sure your phone stays in a language that you lot can actually read, and to brand sure it'due south working before yous get out. You can also purchase a SIM at a local telephone shop. Usually, the SIM card plans come with an pick to top up the residue in case you lot use all the information earlier your trip ends. Prices and availability vary, so check travel forums of your destination for up-to-appointment advice.

Another type of SIM card you tin buy is ane with an international roaming plan, such as those offered by KnowRoaming. You lot can buy these alee of fourth dimension, earlier you leave your home country. They're typically better for frequent travelers than someone taking a brusque vacation in one case a year.

4. Bring an Onetime Phone or Rent One

Let's say yous're interested in using a local SIM carte, only your phone isn't unlocked. Or maybe you're going somewhere a niggling rough and tumble, and you lot don't want to exist waving effectually a $600 phone. You can bring an erstwhile phone, say, one that's been sitting in a drawer for the last year. Renting a phone at the same type of store that sells SIM cards is some other choice. Again, prices and availability will vary.

v. Look for Hotels That Loan Smartphones

I went to Hong Kong last year, and the hotel where I stayed loaned every guest a "handy" (equally smartphones are known at that place) with information and calls included. What a corking perk! A few hotels in Singapore exercise it, too. Wherever y'all're headed, make certain you know the local term for smartphone so you can search whether this tendency is communicable on there. If it is, take advantage of it for local calls, navigating the city, looking upwardly local business organisation information, and using car service apps. Exist sure to simply apply your ain device for taking photos and for more sensitive data, such as electronic mail.

6. Bring Your Telephone, Use It Only on Wi-Fi

You might be amazed at how wired and well continued some places are. I got around both Dubai and Ho Chi Minh Metropolis recently by relying entirely on the abundant complimentary Wi-Fi and in Vietnam, offline Google maps (offline Google maps aren't supported in the UAE). Messaging apps work over Wi-Fi, too (unless they are blocked by the state y'all're traveling to), and then you won't accept much trouble keeping in touch on with friends and family unit back home. Additionally, all four major U.s. telephone companies now support Wi-Fi calling, so as long every bit Wi-Fi calling itself is not blocked by the host land, y'all may exist able to make calls from your own phone number very easily, too. Sometimes Wi-Fi calling does incur additional charges, depending on where you are in the world and where you're calling, so check with your carrier.

7. Stay Safe With a VPN

Add a VPN service to your mobile devices. It's really a good idea whenever you use public Wi-Fi, in the US or abroad. VPNs, or virtual private networks, essentially give you lot i more than layer of online protection. Abroad, they can make it seem every bit if your net traffic is coming from within the US, which is helpful if you need to practise emergency banking or some other online activity that might kick off users who aren't in their home countries. My colleague Max Boil has tested the best VPNs for Android, and his commodity includes a brief description near how they work, too.

viii. Information technology'due south All Almost the Apps

Employ a messaging app to stay in touch. SMS text is fine for staying in touch when anybody is in the aforementioned country or on the same mobile network. But a messaging app is much cheaper and more user-friendly for chatting among people who are in different countries. WhatsApp is a long-time favorite, simply Bespeak has gotten a lot of attention lately for its potent security and encryption. Another good choice, especially considering so many people have accounts, is Facebook Messenger.

9. Bring Your Ain Adapter

Bring an adapter. USB charging stations are common in airports and hotels. If you lot're conscientious with your privacy, you won't use these for phones and tablets. Why not? Because they tin be modified to steal information from your device. It was a known problem for both Android and iOS devices a few years ago, and while phone makers have addressed the issue by requiring the telephone owner to give permission to a new device before it accesses your information, it's yet ameliorate to be safe than sad. Be sure to also pick upwards a universal adapter or one that's specific to where you lot're traveling. And don't worry that the US is on 110 volts while much of the rest of the world is on 220 or college. Calculating equipment is all built to handle it. Y'all might even be impressed with how much faster your phone charges. But don't plug in a curling atomic number 26.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/mobile-phones/14496/how-to-set-up-your-phone-for-international-travel

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