Travel much? Here's the quick list of what's worth grabbing:
- BlackBerry 9700 (UMA means free WiFi calling internationally, 3G means it works anywhere on earth)
- iPhone 3GS (awesome browser and maps makes life easy. Skype is also pretty handy. Make sure you unlock it.)
- A Boingo account ($10/month to use lots of WiFi hotspots abroad)
- A Google Voice account (call forwarding, voicemail transcription)
- Gizmo account (call-forward from your Google Voice account to your local prepaid number seamlessly)
- Kindle (with international wireless, you're always getting the news and books you want... it's awesome)
Here're a little more detail:
I just got back from a 3 week trip to Japan and Thailand, and I didn't want to be TOTALLY disconnected, so figuring out how to stay in touch, and not pay $3/minute to AT&T or T-Mobile for roaming was high on my list. Here's what I did and how it worked out for me:
First up, my BlackBerry Bold 9700 on T-Mobile. On T-Mobile you can get a $20/month add-on that includes all the international eMail use you can imagine, which is a great way to control costs. Also, unlike AT&T, T-Mobile has enabled WiFi calling (aka UMA), which allows your phone to use voice and data service over WiFi just as if you were home... meaning, for free.
Next up, the iPhone 3GS. AT&T's data plans are pretty terrible for roaming, but there's no shortage of ways to unlock an iPhone, thankfully. Between a local SIM card, with data services, ($30/month for 3G and unlimited data on TrueMove in Thailand, for example) and GPS, the iPhone becomes an amazing travel guide. Maps, search, Skype, etc. all make navigating a foreign city a whole lot easier.
Whether or not you're taking a laptop on your trip is a big question by itself. In my case, we planned this trip as we went, and since that meant lots of research and online bookings we brought the Mac. One cool thing was that as soon as I got to a hotel room, I plugged my Mac in by ethernet, and used Mac OS X's "Internet Sharing" feature to turn my laptop into a WiFi access point. As soon as I did this, my iPhone and BlackBerry both became totally free to use. Love this.
Speaking of WiFi, it's still expensive to get WiFi in lots of places, from hotels to airports. Unless, of course, you've got a Boingo account. For $10/month, you can get unlimited WiFi access at hotspots all over the world. I've used it in hotels, airports, and cafe's all over the world. It pays for itself the first time you use it.
Voicemail is another of the tricky ways carriers get roaming fees on your bill. Say someone calls you when you're on vacation, and you ignore the call. Well, your phone *forwards* the call back to your home country so it can go to voicemail. Guess who pays for that? So, how to fix this? Well, call your carrier and tell them to turn voicemail *off* on your phone. Then go ahead and get a Google Voice account, and give everyone THAT number instead of your cellphone's number. If people call or text you, you'll still get the call/message on your phone. But if you ignore the call, Google Voice handles the voicemail bit. No forwarding. No roaming charge. You also happen to get email transcription, and a web interface for free... which is really cool.
Want to get a bit more nerdy? Setup a Gizmo VoIP account, and set Google Voice to also forward your calls to your Gizmo number. So when someone calls you, your phone will ring, and if your computer's running, your Gizmo client will also "ring". More interestingly, you can tell Gizmo to forward your calls to your new local prepaid number (the SIM card that's now hopefully in your unlocked iPhone). What's happening here, again? Well, when someone calls your Google Voice number, it'll get forwarded to Gizmo, which will then forward the call to your new local number. What's cool is just how cheap this is. Gizmo, for example, charges 3-cents per minute to forward a call to Thailand. So, when someone in the US called me, I paid 3-cents per minute to receive the call by using Gizmo and a local network provider. AT&T would have charged me $1.99 per minute instead. Yup, AT&T is 66-times more expensive. This is a great way to save some money when roaming.
Finally, get a Kindle. Besides being way easier to carry than a bunch of books, the international wireless feature is fantastic. I was sitting on a beach in rural Thailand (on an island with no paved roads) reading Tim Ferriss' Four Hour Work Week. At some point he mentioned another book that sounded pretty interesting, and I was able to find, buy, and download the other book in less than a minute, without leaving my pina colada. Oh, and while I wasn't likely to get my weekly Economist magazine on an island that doesn't have an ATM or a bookstore, every Friday morning the Kindle received that week's issue electronically.
Other nice things to have around:
- Zagat to Go, the iPhone app from Zagat, has a great list of hotels, restaurants, and cafe's that you can use all over the world. A recent update of the app lets you store these lists right on the iPhone itself. So there's none of the slowness, flakiness, or costs of roaming to deal with.
- TripIt is fantastic. Handles reservations from all sorts of travel services, and neatly organizes them into an easy-to-check itinerary right on your device. Ever need to look for your boarding pass to find your flight number when you're filling out a customs declaration card? TripIt has all the info you need right there. Hope your flight's delayed so you can sleep a few more minutes? TripIt tells you what your flight's status is. Have a connecting flight? Shortly after you land, you'll get an eMail telling you whether your next flight is on time, where it is, and how long you have to make your connection. Really well executed.
-Skype on iPhone is a great app to have around, especially when making lots of calls. Often-times, I was on the BlackBerry and my wife was on the iPhone. With Skype on the iPhone, we still didn't pay for roaming.
What didn't work so well?
- CityMaps2Go is a great idea: Opensource map data from lots of big cities all over the world, all downloaded right to your iPhone, so you can look at maps without needing a data connection... meaning, you don't need to pay for roaming to use the maps. On paper it's a great idea, but in practise, the maps just aren't good enough. Wandering around Tokyo, it was apparent that I was better off paying AT&T for roaming than trying to use CityMaps2Go. As the open-sourced maps get better and more complete, this will be a great way to reduce roaming costs while traveling in future.
- WorldMate. It's like TripIt's under-achieving little brother. Had all sorts of issues with imporing itineraries, and has an interface that seems really powerful, and just ends up being confusing. Also, it appears to have the amazing ability to let you find and book flights right on your phone. In practise, it was too painful, and I ended up using my laptop every time. It feels like they've tried to do too many things, and haven't done many well.
What didn't work so well?
- CityMaps2Go is a great idea: Opensource map data from lots of big cities all over the world, all downloaded right to your iPhone, so you can look at maps without needing a data connection... meaning, you don't need to pay for roaming to use the maps. On paper it's a great idea, but in practise, the maps just aren't good enough. Wandering around Tokyo, it was apparent that I was better off paying AT&T for roaming than trying to use CityMaps2Go. As the open-sourced maps get better and more complete, this will be a great way to reduce roaming costs while traveling in future.
- WorldMate. It's like TripIt's under-achieving little brother. Had all sorts of issues with imporing itineraries, and has an interface that seems really powerful, and just ends up being confusing. Also, it appears to have the amazing ability to let you find and book flights right on your phone. In practise, it was too painful, and I ended up using my laptop every time. It feels like they've tried to do too many things, and haven't done many well.
