Top Ways to Stay in Touch
Travelling is certainly one of the greatest experience one can go through and there is absolutely no way to deny it. For those in love with travelling though, there is always the downfall of being away from home and from the people you care about. The distance can be an awful thing and although you will be more than happy to discover places and people that are unique to each other, you will sometimes crave for a long-distance chit-chat with those people you will always associate with “home”: your parents, your siblings, your high-school friends.
Fortunately, modern technology, such as Rebtel or even text messaging, provides us with plenty of choices when it comes to this and nowadays you can actually stay in touch with whomever you want at very low (and even free) prices. All it takes is a bit of know-how and if you want to find out more about this, then do read on.
Free Calling Apps
If you have a smartphone (regardless of the operating system it uses), you can simply download one of the many free calling apps out there. Basically, you will just have to make an account with the provider of the app and it will either be associated with your phone number or it will simply work like any kind of messaging software application you normally use on a computer. The people with whom you would like to keep in touch will also have to have the app (or the computer software) installed and to make an account as well.
With a free calling app, you can keep in touch with anyone, you can make free calls that are absolutely unlimited or you can even have video calls to see the people with whom you are talking. Some of the apps also offer the option of purchasing credit you can use with landlines and mobile service providers as well, so if you want to talk to someone who is not very tech-savy, you can do it as well at prices that are much lower than the international call prices offered by the vast majority of the phone companies out there.
Messaging Applications/Software
These mobile phone apps and computer software applications work very much like the above-mentioned free calling apps, with the exception that they will not necessarily provide you with voice or video call options (and if they do, the quality of the call itself can be lower). The advantage to this kind of software is that you can use it even if you do not have much in your mobile phone data plan and if carrying a laptop/netbook around in your trips is not exactly an option.
This may seem outdated to some of you, but the truth is that the e-mail can still provide you with certain benefits. If you are busy, if the people you want to communicate with are busy too or if you are on time zones that are much too different to make both of you be online at the same time, the e-mail will still be able to help you keep in touch.
Traditional Mail
This is definitely one of the most outdated ways in which you can stay in touch with people back home, but sometimes it is still an option. If you do not have access to the Internet or if you want to communicate with someone who doesn’t (or simply does not know how to use a computer), then the traditional e-mail will still work just fine.