Communication abroad

[E.B. White]

My wife and I are interested in hearing about how other expatriate teachers/travelers deal with telephone communication abroad. We are moving to Saudi Arabia and plan to travel extensively (as we have done while living in South America, without a satisfactory means of communicating while traveling). Is it a matter of stocking up on different SIM cards? Are there particularly good brands of cellular telephones for what I am talking about? And - has anyone heard of the National Georgraphic Talk Abroad Travel Phone? Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you.

[gengrant]

I would recommend getting an online program such as Skype, and then using your laptop to call anywhere in the world...Skype to Skype calls are free and Skype to non-Skype numbers are dirt cheap...we called from China to the US for about 2 cents per minute.

There are other programs too...Yahoo has one, among others.

Best of luck

:)

[carlenss]

I don't know about Saudi but Skype is a banned website in Abu Dhabi.

[shadocg]

Hi EB - what school are you going to? I am at the big US school in Riyadh.

I use skype and Yahoo Messenger. I use Yahoo Messenger out to call phones back home because it is cheaper than skype. 10 bucks gets me around 600 minutes with no expiry on using the time. It automatically reloads my 10 bucks when I get low.

I was talking from Penang Malaysia to my family last Christmas and while it was not perfect, it was bearable, and cheap.

Your school will have all of these programs blocked and you will have to use them at home.

Hope this helps,

shad

[E.B. White]

It's been a long time since I have had the time to check this site. Thanks to all for the advice. We are in Jeddah, and so far, we really like it here.