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How to call home for free when traveling

November 20, 2020

When you are on your trip and you want to call home, touch base or share your adventure with loved ones at home you don’t want to do this at a huge expense. I would rather you spend that money on new experiences and food on your trip!

One of the best things about technology is being able to call home for free. Keeping in touch has never been more easy and inexpensive than it is now. I am sure most people have become more familiar with connecting with each other from a distance during the pandemic, but you may not know the different ways this can be done without the need of a phone number.

To call home for free, you will need to have your own smart phone or tablet as well as Internet. These can all be used through wifi so you don’t need to use the data on your phone or to purchase a local sim card.

You can find free wifi 95% of the time at your accommodations, just ask for the password. You will also be able to find free wifi out and about too…some cities have citywide free wifi, most restaurants and café’s have free wifi for patrons you just need to ask for the password again. Some shops and fast food places will have free wifi…you can usually count on McDonalds and Starbucks to have this in a pinch. Then you can also just open your wifi control and see where there is unlocked wifi signals and try them out to see if you can connect without a password.

No matter when and where you want to talk you will be able to find somewhere to connect for free with a little planning.

If you do have data, I do suggest you still only use wifi for these services as it will eat through your data very quickly…save that data for your navigation and searches while out of your accommodation.

Before you leave on your trip, you want to make sure you have these apps on your device and that the people who you plan on calling also have these on their device or computer as well. You both want to know how to use these so that it is a seamless call when you are away. I remember when I started calling my parents through Facetime, since they had never used it before they never understood where that ringing was coming from on their tablet. After a quick tutorial we were chatting over video all the time.

These are my favourite ways to contact loved ones for free while I am travelling.

Facebook Messenger

Both parties need to have a facebook account but all you need to do is when you are in the messenger tab, once you tap into someones name, there is a little phone and camera icon up at the top right corner . If you tap on the phone icon it is just a voice call, if you tap on the camera icon it will be a video call.

Facetime

If you both have apple devices you automatically have access to Facetime. This is Apple’s free video calling app that is pre-installed on your phone. To use this, open the app and select someone from your contacts to call and as long as they have an apple device you will be able to connect.

Whatsapp

This app will be more familiar to people who travel more frequently since it is the most widely used free app with people around the world. You just need to download the app sign up for an account and then it will use your contacts phone numbers on your device. Not only can you video or voice call home for free but you also have free texting as well. One tip is when you are adding people from other countries, make sure you us “+” and then the country code (1 for Canada/USA) and then the phone number. It will not go through if you don’t have that + button in there.

Google Hangouts

This one is great if you want to schedule a time with someone to talk to as it will add it to both of your calendars, but you can also have an immediate video call too. You both need to have a Gmail account and then you can just schedule something within your Google Calendar or you can go to the app and call someone from there. If you use the phone calling feature this is only free in Canada and the USA, so make sure you use the video chat feature.

Skype

Skype is one of the original ways to call home for free. Again you both need to have an account but you also need to be logged in to it to get your call put through. If someone is logged out then you won’t be able to connect.

I don’t use this one often but one of my favourite ways to use it is for credit card emergencies. There may be times when your bank puts a hold on your credit card thinking that there may be fraud, seeing purchases in different countries. There is no way to get your card working unless you call them. And yes, this has been done to me many times even when I tell my credit card company I am travelling and where.

Since you won’t be able to connect with them through the previous free ways, as you can only dial their phone number to connect, if you use the 1-800 number you can use the Skype phone for free. Just type in the 1-800 number into Skype and you will be able to chat to them for free. So anytime you have an 1-800/888 number to call you can use Skype to call for free.

check out this article I wrote about it.

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