Connecting Abroad by Cell

It's easier and simpler to take along an international cell phone on trips out of the US, especially if you want one for emergencies and minimal use. This is especially important for the womantraveler who wants or needs to stay connected to children, sitters and aging parents because, alas, alack, we feel more secure with the option of easy contact. And certainly this is essential for business womentravelers. But the choices for purchase and rental are wildly different, and you need to think ahead and have a sharp pencil to do the math for what suits you best.

Major options are (1) buying an international cell phone, (2) tenting a cell phone or satellite phone before you leave, (3) renting a cell phone once you arrive at your destination and (4) buying a phone card before you leave.

Other criteria that affect your cost:

• Per minute rates charged by your phone service
• Local charges in the countries you are visiting, or when calling from country to country
• The length of your trip and expected amount of usage
• Phone features

While renting sounds simpler, sometimes buying can be less expensive, especially for a long trip or if you are a frequent international traveler. For a 10-day vacation to Paris, my online research led me to a simple purchase option -- a $49 international cell phone with a standard rate for incoming and outgoing minutes. It beat the rental options and gives me an inexpensive international cell phone I can use on future trips to other countries. And my son can use it for no extra purchase or rental charge for his summer abroad trip this year.

Another smart option is to rent a cell phone once you arrive at your destination abroad -- if you're going to be in one country and use your cell phone frequently within that country. Those rates will be cheaper. But calling outside that country will not be, as I learned when renting a phone on a Caribbean island a couple of years ago.

Bottom line -- check out not only the rental or purchase options before you leave but also the rate plans in each country you'll visit -- and read on for more details...

Most US cell phones don't work outside the US, and the ones that do are often pricey. US mobile phones operate on different technologies and frequencies than most of the world. Sorting through the options offered by major US cellular services isn't easy. First you have to consider the base price of the phone itself, then a calling plan, and finally the international per minute rates ranging from as little as 50 cents a minute to over $10 a minute, including simply picking up your voice mail. While your phone might work overseas, you have to call customer service first to set up that type of roaming -- and the extent of the international networks varies. As a result, womentravelers I know who travel frequently abroad for work or for pleasure often have two cell phones and two numbers -- one for the US and one for overseas.

Clearly the cellular companies are actively recruiting customers for flexibility at home and abroad. Verizon Wireless,T-Mobile and Cingular offer several phones that work internationally as well as in the US with a more economical range of base prices, but like all cell phones, the complete costs are dependent on the rate plans.

If you're a frequent international traveler, slogging through the rate charts and visiting your regional phone stores may be worth it to decide what's most economical and offers the right menu of features for you. For my 10-day trip to Paris, in which all I needed was a basic phone and voicemail for emergencies and minimal use, I settled for simplicity -- a $49 purchased Nokia (model 3410) from Mobal (a United Kingdom based company).

Most of the world pays simply for minutes used, not the complicated rate plans required in the US. Mobal's website was the easiest to navigate and its rates the simplest -- in France, a single rate of $1.25-1.50 a minute incoming and outgoing. That beat even a weekly rental at $2.99 per day plus $1.49 a minute that I paid last year to rent a cell phone from Verizon for the Caribbean. (Be sure to check latest rates.) And now I own an inexpensive phone for anywhere I go outside the US. The only drawback is that I have a UK number, so all calls bounce through the UK. Still, in the long run, that doesn't add to my costs significantly.

Renting

For a cruise to the Caribbean in 2004, a friend and I rented a cell phone and a satellite phone -- the cell phone for the land (it was cheaper) and the satellite phone for the water (more expensive but full coverage and still cheaper than the ship to shore option offered by the cruise line). After putting down $300 deposit and paying $2.99 a day for the cell phone rental, plus $1.49 a call, my total at the end of the trip was about $60. Satellite phones have higher day rates and outrageously expensive charges per minute (over $10) and are heavy and clumsy to carry, but in the right situation, great to have in hand.

Since then, several luxury cruise ships (ncluding Silversea, Oceania and Norwegian Cruise Line, have introduced cellphone-at-sea access and/or Wi-Fi as well as free Internet. This is a mixed blessing, of course -- meeting passenger expectations in a world in which cruise ship accommodations must be more like hotel rooms but with the danger of too much cellphone chatter, a la airports and airplanes.

The Good Ol' International Phone Card

In some countries, cellular service is extremely unstable or non-existent. Take Costa Rica, where my son went on spring break. I bought him a $20 international phone card, then added $30 more in minutes by credit card before he left. Even then, as he found there and I have discovered in Europe, finding and using a phone booth in another country isn't always easy, especially if you aren't fluent in the language. But an international phone card can be a security option -- when they work, which they don't always. The trick is to make sure it works not only from the US to overseas but from overseas bgack to the US. Some don't, as we discovered -- and had we called the customer service number on the back of the card before buying the (what became a useless) card, we would have found that out.

The SIM Card

If you've read this far and know anything about the subject, you'll notice I have not yet mentioned the SIM card. That is the code that goes in each cell phone (home or abroad) with its unique number. A prepaid SIM card for the country you are visiting will often get your phone rates down to 25 to 50 cents a minute. Again, this argues for the phone purchase option. The Mobal phone I purchased has one SIM for the world; some international cellular companies, however, require you to buy a separate SIM for each country -- so be sure to ask before you make your choice.