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Important Tip for Travelers
Are you headed out of the country for Spring Break? Are you attending the Royal Wedding in England? If you’re living in England, are you leaving the country to avoid the Royal Wedding? In any case, whenever you leave your country make sure to disable your smartphone from accessing data so apps don’t download data at international rates without your knowledge.
One of the great things about smartphones is that they can constantly be updating your email, weather, stock, news, Facebook and other apps automatically. That way, when you open an app, the information is ready for you to see without you having to wait for it to download. But when you’re out of your home country, this handy feature is dangerous because it can cost you more than your trip.
To avoid a shocking bill when you return home, disable this feature before you leave the country.
- On your iPhone to go Settings => General=> Network=>Data Roaming=> Off
- On your 3G iPad go to Settings=>Cellular Data=> Data Roaming=> Off
- On your Android Phone go to Settings=> Accounts & sync settings=>uncheck Background Data and Auto-sync. You can also manage your accounts such as Facebook and email to turn sync off from that screen.
In countries such as the UK, you can get your cell phone unlocked by the carrier free of charge. But if you live in the US, you’re not as fortunate, carriers don’t unlock cell phones.
When arriving in another country with an unlocked cell phone, you can purchase a sim card with a data plan when you arrive. That means you will be paying local rates instead of international rates for data and local calls in that country. This is much cheaper than signing up for an international plan with the carrier in your home country.
Good news for iPad owners: the 3G iPad is unlocked, meaning that you can arrive in another country and buy a sim card for your iPad to get data in that country. Be careful, though, because the iPad uses a micro sim card, so you will have to make sure you get a micro sim card for your iPad, a regular sim card won’t fit in the slot.
Also, your 3G iPad will work in most countries if it is an AT&T iPad, because AT&T uses GSM technology which is used nearly worldwide. Verizon uses CDMA and very few countries outside the US use CDMA. Because of these different technologies, you cannot switch your iPad between AT&T and Verizon, even though your iPad is unlocked.
So if you live in the US but travel outside the US frequently, you should get an AT&T iPad.
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Royal Wedding Apps
If you are eagerly anticipating the Royal Wedding more than Will and Kate, check out the Royal Wedding apps in the iTunes App Store.
First is The Essential Royal Wedding Guide, on sale for a limited time at 50% off for a low price of $0.99. This app includes loads of trivia about the couple as well as a schedule for wedding related events. One special feature of the app is GPS capabilities to guide you to where these events are taking place.
Another cool app is the NBC app for the Royal Wedding, available as either an iPhone or an iPad app. The app has a photo album as well as news reports about the couple throughout their courtship and engagement. This app even has suggestions if you want to host your own wedding party to celebrate Will and Kate’s nuptials! The app is free so you can grab one for your iPhone and one for your iPad.
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Royal Wedding Update
If you have received your invitation to the Royal Wedding, but aren’t sure whether you want to attend a stuffy affair, check out this video of the Royal Wedding rehearsal. Looks like Will and Kate’s wedding day might be more fun than you think!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kav0FEhtLug
*Flag image by Brittany Greene
Hey, I found a great app today that’s great for Royal watchers, in fact, I meant to tell you about it, even before I saw this post. It’s called The British Monarchy and has a chronological history of every monarch of England, Scotland and Ireland. It’s really cool. I learned a lot just reading it for a few minutes (they’ve even got Edgar the Aetheling, who was technically king after Harold was defeated at Hastings!). I love it…great for history buffs on holiday to the UK!
Hi KathyF, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! Thanks for your recommendation about The British Monarchy app. The app has a lot of great features and is a bargain at $0.99 in the iTunes App Store. There is also a free app in the Android Market called The British Monarchy by a different developer, but the app isn’t nearly as thorough as the app in the iTunes App Store.
Also check out Royal Wedding Insider from the BBC which is free in the iTunes App Store and the Android Market.
Thanks so much for the great cell phone information! I will make sure to turn off roaming during our upcoming trip out of the country.
Hi Carol, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! I’m glad you found this information useful. I just leave Data Roaming off on my iPhone and iPad because I don’t need Data Roaming on a daily basis.
T-Mobile does (so I have heard at least) unlock your phone for free, as long as you have been a customer for 90 days I believe it is. At&t (despite their evil empire status) will also, or at least they did back in 2008-ish time frame. They have grown more evil since then so I’m not 100% sure on their practices these days.
Hi Matt, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! Thanks for letting us know about T-Mobile. It’s definite worth checking with your carrier to see if they would unlock your phone. Have you had your phone unlocked? If you can get it unlocked for free, you should definitely do that. Unlocking your phone is very handy for international travel and increases resale value.
When we came back from London, we brought back an unlocked phone and used it with T-Mobile briefly, until we found the Virgin Mobile deal (see, Smart and Cheap!). When we signed up with T-Mobile, the salesman was surprised that we had an unlocked phone as he said he didn’t see many of those.
When I moved over to England, I tried to get AT&T to unlock my phone, but they wouldn’t do it (that was back in 2006). I don’t think of AT&T as evil, though. Everyone’s has their own opinion, but I have been very pleased with AT&T.
Hi Carolyn:
On the subject of data charges while traveling: how did you download books to your Kindle while you were living in England? Did you have a UK based account?
We’re planning to move to France in August. Right now we only have one magazine subscription but if we’re away it might be nice to have more. I don’t remember how much Amazon charges for downloads while traveling–maybe it’s not that much…but is there a way to set up my Kindle so that France is my new home base and I don’t incur any charges? Thanks.
Carrie
Hi Carrie, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! International travel with the Kindle is much easier than it used to be. The first two Kindle models used 3G to transfer data using the Sprint network. Since Sprint uses CDMA, the older Kindle models couldn’t download books outside the US. You could get books on those Kindle models by downloading books onto your computer and then transferring the files to your Kindle, but that’s much more complicated than downloading books directly to your Kindle.
The third generation Kindle now has Wi-Fi and certain models have 3G with AT&T so you can download your Kindle books outside the US. There is no charge for downloading books outside the US.
There are some second generation Kindle models that use AT&T, called Kindle Global, that you may be able to find on eBay.
You can switch to a UK Kindle account, but you can’t have both a UK and a US account on your Kindle. If you switch to a UK account, you will not be able to access your books from your US account on your Kindle.
So if you have an older Kindle model, I would suggest upgrading to the Kindle 2 Global or the Kindle 3. That will make your Kindle experience in France much more enjoyable.
Best of luck with your exciting move!