Traditional carriers get full of glee when their customers mention to them that they're going overseas. Nothing gets them more excited! They are under the impression that your decision to travel enables theft on a grander scale than normal. Thankfully not everyone feels this way, and there are ways you can avoid being charged such egregiously high rates by becoming aware of the various new options a traveller is thankfully agreed now.
For reasonable amounts of money, North American users can travel abroad and use their international SIM card to make direct long-distance calls and use data at much better rates than they'd receive from their local carrier. Once you buy the SIM card itself (usually for a very nominal fee), you decide the rate per minute of calling and data you want. This does not give you the kind of freedom you've got with unlimited rates, but it serves to keep you in line and make sure you do not spend your whole trip talking to people back at home. This way, you'll use it for emergencies, and it gives you a space to use it for contacting hotels and arranging and coordinating plans with people. Of course, if you feel the need to talk a lot on your phone, you just buy a larger plan and you'll still get a better rate than at most traditional servers. Many packages are available for data bundles in case you have an iPhone and a tablet and you feel you're going to use a heavy amount of data. Be on the lookout for these.
Check the details of the plan and make sure everything works for you. This includes texting, data, and ling-distance calls. But if you're using an international SIM card it'll be a much better rate than your traditional carrier. Still, it's essential to only buy what you need. The plans are designed to accommodate this.
Unlike with phone cards, you do not need to dial two numbers. Just one that takes you directly to the person you're calling, like at home. Also, you can keep your original number, which is a huge hassle associated in the past with trying to buy something from somewhere else and use it with an existing plan.
When you're traveling the last thing you want to be thinking about is the cost of your communications, or really any cost at all. Still, we can not help it sometimes when we feel we're being unjustly charged. Now that you know there are different price options out there, take on some of the responsibility before you go on your trip to ensure that your vacation is not marred by undue charges. The times have changed and cell phones are something we have totally become accustomed to and have learned to take them for granted. Thankfully the rates even while going overseas has begun to reflect this need, and carriers can not just freely exploit their consumers anymore.
