Keeping in touch with friends and family while traveling isn't always straightforward. Back when we started our journeys in 2008, it was even tougher—WiFi was scarce, internet cafés had sluggish and unreliable connections, and Skype was only beginning to reshape how we communicate.
Today, countless options exist for staying connected on the road, and some are far more inventive than others. In this article, I’ll share five clever ways to maintain contact with your loved ones while you’re away.
1. Send Postcards
MyPostcard.com provides one of the most original methods for keeping in touch while also sending a thoughtful gift. Postcards might feel old-fashioned, but MyPostcard gives them a modern twist: travelers can easily upload their own travel photos online, customize a postcard with personal text, and mail it to family and friends from anywhere.
They even offer a handy app (available on the App Store and Google Play) that lets you design personalized postcards directly from your phone. These cards aren’t only for travelers—they also feature greeting cards, birthday cards, and photo prints, all orderable online or through the app.
Dariece and I recently tested the service by sending a few postcards, and it’s remarkably simple. After registering, you can quickly upload your own pictures, design a postcard or greeting card, type a message on the back, and have it dispatched within minutes.
Send a Free Postcard Now!
Goats On The Road has partnered with MyPostcard to offer our readers a limited number of complimentary postcards. They’re available on a first-come, first-served basis, so click the button below and enter promo code “Nick” at checkout to send your free postcard.
Note: Be sure to create an account before designing your postcard so you don’t lose your work. It takes just a few minutes and is completely free.
2. Get a Local SIM
This isn’t so much a unique way to connect with family as it is the best method for accessing the tools you need to reach them. You’ll often see promotions for “International SIM Cards” or WiFi devices, but aside from a few countries where local SIMs are pricey (like Japan), these options aren’t ideal.
In our experience, international SIM cards are painfully slow. Providers throttle speeds to nearly unusable levels. We were once offered payment to endorse one of these international SIMs, but after testing it in 2016, we declined because we didn’t want to recommend a sluggish and costly ($50/month) internet service to our readers.
The most reliable way to get online abroad is still a local SIM card. First, ensure your phone is unlocked—this is easier than you might think. You can buy an unlocked phone directly from the manufacturer (Apple and Samsung offer unlocked versions), or if you’ve nearly finished your contract, ask your provider to unlock it for free.
Alternatively, you can pay for an unlocking service (typically around $30–$50 USD per device, depending on where you go). These services are available through local classifieds, Craigslist, and many independent mobile retailers.
Once your phone is unlocked, picking up a local SIM is cheap and straightforward. In most cases, you can walk into a corner store or any shop displaying the local carrier’s logo and ask to buy a SIM.
Usually, you just pop the SIM into your unlocked phone and start using it immediately, but sometimes you’ll need to send a text to activate it or go through a quick 10-minute registration process involving a passport, signature, and some paperwork.
Either way, having a local SIM in your phone is far better and cheaper. In our experience, it’s the only way to get full 4G LTE speeds at an affordable price. In Canggu, Bali, we paid just $12 for 36 GB of data and 60 minutes of talk time, which lasted us three months! Those international SIMs cost as much as $50 per month and, while unlimited, are often so slow you can barely check emails.
Do yourself a favor while traveling: grab a local SIM, load it with a fast data package and some talk time, and you’re all set. Once you have data and call minutes, you can use the internet to access the other communication methods listed here.
3. Just Call Home
That’s right—sometimes you can skip spotty internet connections and dropped Skype or Facetime calls and simply dial home using your phone. Forget mobile data; just use your regular plan. I know what you’re thinking: “That will cost a fortune!” But that’s not always true.
For example, in Mexico, you can pay just $20 per month for 3.5 GB of data plus unlimited calling to Mexico, the USA, and Canada. While living there, we avoided Skype’s echoing and delays by calling home directly using our unlimited plan.
Recently, European carriers have been required to bill all calls within Europe as local calls, meaning with most providers you can call from Italy to the UK (and anywhere in between) without paying roaming or long-distance charges.
4. Start a Blog
Before we launched this blog, we updated friends and family through individual emails. We’d write a personal message for each person, attach a few photos, and send them off one by one. This took hours, and eventually we realized there was a much better way.
We started with a free blog, but it was clunky, slow, and frustrating to design. Uploading photos took forever, and our blog was hard to find because it appeared alongside other free sites.
In 2012, we bought this domain (www.GoatsOnTheRoad.com), and since then our audience has grown far beyond friends and family. From those early years, our blog naturally expanded, and we realized it could one day generate income.
With no prior experience in web design or WordPress, we grew this blog to the point where it fully funds our travels and lets us visit some amazing destinations—all expenses paid!
If you’re interested in starting a blog—whether just to keep in touch with family or to eventually earn money and finance your travels—check out our guide. For a limited time, you get 63% off your domain and hosting, plus we’ll send you our 200-page beginner blogger ebook (a $20 value) completely free. Click here if you’re interested!
5. Utilize The Apps
Technology has made staying connected with loved ones while traveling easier than ever. Among all the available tools, apps are the most convenient because most let you contact family from a device already in your pocket.
But not all apps are equal. It’s important to explore features like group calls, call forwarding, chat, and video calling to ensure you have everything you need. If one app lacks a feature, just download another to fill the gap! The ones listed below are all free, but your friends and family will also need to have them installed to communicate.
The Best Messaging Apps
- Google Voice: Not only forwards your calls, but also lets you answer them from your computer. It’s like having a physical phone at work or home, even while traveling.
- Google Hangouts: Despite some drawbacks (it can be even slower than Skype), it’s a good option for Google fans who don’t want to pay for calls to the US and Canada.
- Skype: The veteran of online calling apps, Skype definitely has its flaws. Despite a strong brand and large user base, I wouldn’t call it the best, but it’s certainly the most popular.
- WhatsApp: A great app offering fast video calling and a fun built-in messaging system.
- WeChat: Primarily based in China, this excellent chat app also includes calling functionality.
- Facebook Messenger: Probably my favorite for calling and chatting online. Facebook calls work better on slower internet, and if you skip video, you rarely experience delays or dropped calls.
- iMessage & Facetime: Another solid set of Apple products. iMessage and Facetime are decent, but iMessage can sometimes charge you for texting without notice, and Facetime can be slow due to video.
Group Calls & Group Chats
Few people use these apps for their best feature: group calls. If you want to talk to your mom and grandma simultaneously, add them to a group in Hangouts or Facebook Messenger and start a group video call.
These group calls are also great for showing multiple people your trip photos or videos on your phone, or simply uploading them to the chat window with text explanations.
If you don’t want to start a blog or can’t call home often, consider opening a massive group chat with friends and family and updating them with videos, pictures, and descriptions from your trip.
Technology is Your Friend
Dariece and I are incredibly grateful for the technology that lets us stay in touch with our loved ones while traveling. When we first began this nomadic lifestyle, we were lucky if we made contact once every two months on the road.
Nowadays, every café has WiFi, we all carry smartphones, and staying connected is easier than ever. This list is by no means exhaustive, so feel free to add your own tips in the comments below!
What’s your favorite way to keep in touch with family while traveling?
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This article originally appeared on Goats On The Road.
