Part of the joy of traveling abroad is the disconnect from your own country and full immersion into a new culture. That being said, people back home miss you and worry about you (especially your mom who keeps reading about the bird/swine/horse flu outbreaks in whatever country you are near). This is the communication age, and even 3^rd world countries are surprisingly modern with communication methods, sometimes more modern than industrialized nations. Here are a few tips on staying connected with your homeland.

• Netbooks: Bring a netbook! Simple netbooks are only around $250 bucks, they are tiny, lightweight and sturdy. We bought an Acer Apire One in Vietnam for $500 when it first came out, and it changed our whole method of communication. Now they are even cheaper, and better. Remember, electronics are not cheaper in a third world country, in fact usually more expensive! Make sure your netbook is durable, it only needs to do the basics. Free wireless internet is everywhere in the rest of the world, even India, Laos, Malaysia, etc. Consider saving more money and just having Linux (preferably Ubuntu) installed. It is an operating system that does most all of the things windows or apple can do, it is free, and make the netbook run faster. However, Linux requires a good amount of computer expertise to use; unless you are very computer savvy, just stick with Windows.

• Phone Cards: Most Americans have never heard of or used a pay-per-use service, the rest of the world is very familiar with these. You can bring a phone from home, or buy one abroad. You will then need it to be unlocked (you can do this abroad at a phone store, or in the US, but it is often cheaper abroad). Next all you need is a SIM card for the country you are in, which will have a temporary number you can use until your money runs out on it. This will allow you to make essential local calls to hostels, couchsurfing contacts, travel agencies, etc. Use a cheap secondhand phone, you only need the basics. There are even cheap long distance plans where you can call the US or other western countries. If you plan to call home, make sure the phone is tri-band, most phones after 2005ish are. But we don’t suggest you call home with your cell phone, instead use Skype.

• SKYPE!: Skype is a free downloadable program where you can make calls to US cells phones or land phones for $0.02 per minute and European countries for around $0.10 per minute. Buy some credit online at Skype.com and start making calls. If your friends back home are also internet savy, they can use Skype and you can call each other 100% free (In Cambodia I saw a deaf tourist using skype video to sign with a friend back home; heart melting!). Internet cafes all over the planet have functioning headsets and Skype installed, or you can use your netbook!

• Blog: Start up a blog on Wordpress, Blogger, or any other blogging site. They are easy to figure out after some use and are free. While abroad for a year I wrote about every day of the trip. When you have downtime or a rainy day, sit in an internet cafe or use your netbook to write about your adventures. I would usually write a little every night like a diary and upload every week or so. Don’t put in every detail of your day, but you’d be surprised what random facts interest your friends/family back home, and you’ll be especially surprised to find unlikely people back home who followed every word you wrote! Here is our blog as an example flufflebuns.wordpress.com, it evolved through the trip, but by the end I had a pretty solid layout. Remember to keep it interesting, add in history and culture, anything you learn! Your family, most of all, will appreciate it, and if they are helping pay for the trip, it shows them it is a well spent investment.

• Photos: Upload pictures when you have downtime. This is vital not just to share your experiences with others, but also so you have a backup. We consistently put our photos in three separate places; our favorites online, all of them on a 120gb external flash hard drive, and periodically burn to CD’s and send home as backup. We used Flickr.com Flickr.com/flufflebuns/sets, but smug mug, picassa, photobucket and others work great as well. With the free accounts your photos are shrunk in size; not good if you lose the originals and only have copies of lower quality. It usually only costs around $30/yr for a premium account with unlimited uploads. Always make sure you are uploading the original files, sometimes sites will offer “fast uploading,” but it is because they shrink the file. Facebooked photos are NOT backed up photos.

So that is about it. Those devices should be more than plenty to stay connected with the world. Just make sure to protect your equipment from theft. Go to my Protecting Your Valuables article for more tips on safety!

Written by: David Jackson