The Smart Traveller: How To Use Your Smart Phone Overseas

In an age where many people will tell you ‘my life is on my phone,’ it’s easy to see how people become stressed out when traveling overseas, feeling like they won’t be able to use their precious smart phones.

We now travel more than ever. Cheap flights, airlines flying to more destinations, and the ability to book tickets online are just some of the advances technology has helped with. Going on vacation is easier than ever – the only trouble is getting days off. If everything is so easy, why are people still confused about whether they can use their phones overseas?

This is because carriers want you to be confused. They like that you are unsure and want to make it difficult for you to unlock your phone. This happens in the hope that you’ll buy a roaming plan, or maybe you’ll buy a new phone from the carrier in your new country – or even better - maybe you’ll flick roaming on, forget to set it up properly, and rack up a crazy international phone bill.

The thing is, if you are only even partially savvy when it comes to smart phones, understanding how to use your phone overseas will be a walk in the park.

Smart phones have made using your device in different countries even easier. The contents of your phone can be accessed from nearly any smart device simply by logging on to a certain account. Every country uses a GSM network which means most phones can be used in any country, provided they use the right frequency and have a SIM card slot. Some countries like the USA, also use a network called CDMA (like Verizon and Sprint) and their phones don’t come with a slot for a SIM card.

Nowadays unless you are using an old Nokia or flip phone all your contacts, text messages, pictures and apps should already be backed up onto a cloud system.

Both Google and Apple offer this in the form of your Google ID and your Apple ID. These accounts are set up when you first turn on your new phone. And don’t worry if you’re of the type that is technologically inept, and had their friend or relative set up the phone, because they would have done the same thing mentioned above to activate the phone for you.

The knowledge of knowing you still have all your contacts using a new SIM card overseas is definitely a weight off the shoulders. That brings up the discussion on whether to buy a roaming plan from your carrier, or, to buy a new SIM card in each country. It all depends on how often you want to use it and the amount of data you will need.

Most people traveling with their smart phones will be using the maps app to navigate through each city. This useful app is almost invaluable when it comes to saving hours not getting lost, although sometimes that’s the fun part, but in turn will chew through a fair bit of data.

With that in mind most carriers will charge around $5-$10 a day for you to use your phone in another country. Whereas a lot of countries will have budget carriers, that piggyback off the bigger guys, giving you decent coverage and data usage for a decent price.

A quick search on the net will bring up the best prepaid plans your destination has to offer. Blogs that will comment on each carrier’s pros and cons are al so a good source of first hand use – albeit not all are in English, did someone say Google translate.

But all this information may be in vain, if you don’t have a GSM phone. Even more so if you have a GSM phone that is a budget handset, and therefore may not work on a particular frequency.

Each country uses a particular frequency (also known as a band) to send and receive calls, text and data. In most of the world the frequency is 900/1800 MHz, places like the United States use the 850/1900 MHz frequency. Most high-end and mid-range phones cover most of the world’s frequencies. Phones bought direct from the carrier may only support certain frequencies than phones bought from the producer, so be careful.

Sites like GSMARENA will tell you what frequencies your particular phone will support and you can always skip down to the local phone shop and ask them. Typing in GSM frequency map will tell what each country is using.

Having a phone that works in a particular country also involves having an unlocked phone. Most carriers will unlock your phone for you. Some will to do it for free, others will charge a fee. The carriers are usually more expensive, surprise, so if you want a cheaper option check online. There are a multitude of sites that will provide you with a code to unlock your phone for as little as $5.

If someone is still unsure about how to use their phone abroad, there are companies like Cellular Abroad who rent out phones and SIM cards. You have the option with them to rent a single country or a multi country phone.

Empowered with the knowledge that most smart phones are able to be used overseas, people can now truly call themselves a smart traveller – and not just a smart phone user.