Staying connected easier and cheap

connected, promises, because, stopped, easier

Staying connected easier and cheap
When I was a gawky teenager, my parents took me to Europe, broadened my horizon, and changed my life. After I graduated high school, I was ready to travel to Europe on my own, but my parents were nervous. To earn their blessing, I had to make two promises: I wouldn't go to Turkey (because they were worried I'd be sold into the white slave trade) and I'd write home every other day. My dad figured that if the postcards stopped coming, at least he'd know where to begin looking.

Today, it's a new world. When my kids travel to Europe, I can track them down instantly on their cell phones. If we both use a computer, I can see them while we talk and it's usually free.

Over the last few years, there's been a revolution in long-distance communication that makes it easier and cheaper for travellers to stay in touch. Take your laptop or netbook to Europe, hook up to a fast Internet connection, and you can talk to people anywhere - for free. This technology, called Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), can save a lot of money.

I was reluctant to try VoIP, but now I'm a believer. The company called Skype (www.skype.com) is the dominant provider of VoIP, but other companies (Google Talk, www.google.com/talk) work in much the same way. Visit the website to download the free application and to register. Once you're signed up, talk online via your computer to a buddy with a computer running the same program. If you have webcams, you can see each other - all for free. Skype (shortened for "sky peer to peer") also works for making calls from your computer to telephones worldwide. This isn't free, but the rates are reasonable.

With Skype, you can also buy a phone number in your home country that links to your computer wherever you are travelling. While this all has to be set up online, it's fairly user-friendly and can save you a bundle. The sound quality is generally as good as a standard phone connection (although the video can be choppy). The program uses your computer's built-in speakers, webcam, and microphone, if it has them. If you want to improve the voice and sound quality, you can buy an operator-type headset for around $20. A cheap webcam also costs about $20.

Increasingly, you can even use VoIP from certain Internetenabled smartphones (such as the iPhone), bypassing the expensive rates mobile-phone companies charge for international calls. A Skype app is available for some smartphones, or you can use a third-party service such as Fring. com. Even the iPod Touch - which isn't designed as a phone - can be used to make Skype calls to computers or phones, if you have an external microphone and a Wi-Fi connection. Tech-savvy travellers should do some homework before their trip.