Long Term Travelling: How To Stay In Touch

When you are on a long term travel it can sometimes get quite lonely. It is understandable. But at the same time it can also become lonely for the people back home. Your loved ones who are going about their normal lives without you. Missing you. The people who may even be funding your adventures, such as parents. As such you do owe it to them to try your best to be able to keep them in the loop while you are crossing continents and time zones. Stay in touch with them and tell them where you are and what is going on. Of course you can do this by phone, but there are other ways, more personal ways. You may have considered some of these but read on because you could see something else that is just as pertinent.

Getting things through the post can be a nice surprise for those back at home. Sending postcards is a great way to give people a souvenir from your travels. You can pick them up fairly cheap in most places but if not you could make your own using these free postcard templates. They give something of substance, something unexpected and physical. It may be worth printing a few of these off in advance of your next destination to ensure you have them close to hand so that you can send them off with relative ease. Stamps may be a good bet too.

In terms of digital correspondence it has never been easier. Get yourself a good laptop so that you can use Skype, ensure it has a decent webcam attached and carry this with you. Of course you can do it with a mobile phone these days, using apple’s facetime for example. But this can be costly so you are better off using skype,  as there are different ways you can connect to people.

You need to watch out for roaming charges. If you are out in the middle of nowhere and connecting to internet you could end up paying hundreds back. Always be alert. Ensure you tell your carrier where you are going before hand so you don’t get any unexpected bills. The same applies with international phone calls. As such, you are best to keep some local currency in your pocket, loose change, to use in pay phones. They are still quite widely used in certain countries and you can cut back on the costs while still speaking to your loved ones. If you are out of money and needing to speak to them don’t forget to use a reverse charge, this way you can still speak to them.

You can use the internet too if you are worried about certain data costs. Facebook uses a messaging service, built into this is an “I’m safe service,”  where if something happens you can easily let people know you are safe using the service, giving your family peace of mind and leaving them happy. You owe it to them and it is fairly easy to set up too.