The Long Distance Phone Call

Getting in touch across time zones, oceans and phone lines can bring a smile to your friends' faces, as well as to your own.  Sometimes your mother just needs to hear your voice, especially if it’s her birthday.  Trying to coordinate a long distance phone call can be troublesome, so if you plan on keeping in touch voice-to-voice, be sure to stock up on phone cards (and know how to use them).

The downside of calling friends and family is a combination of financial cost and the homesickness factor.  A phone call can let loose all that emotion you didn’t know you had building up about home and family, so beware!

Online Options

No matter where you go, there’s usually an internet café somewhere where you can log on and touch base with all of your friends and family waiting at home.  Whether you have time to write individual emails to all of your contacts or you send off a mass email to your entire address book, the internet is fairly easy to access around the world and is usually cheap enough that you can fit it into your travel budget once or twice a week.

Sign in to your instant messenger and see who’s available to chat or log into your social networking site or blog and post an update.  Keeping in touch via Facebook or MySpace will let your friends and family follow your travels at their own pace.

If you can plan a time to call your family, boyfriend or girlfriend, best friends from the 3rd grade, etc., Skype is a free way to see their faces in real time and have a good chat.  The video calling option is nice and while it’s not perfect, it’s free (which is good news for all travellers on a budget) and fun.

Connect Long Distance

You’re not thinking about home and the people left behind every minute of your vacation and you shouldn’t be!  But if you forget to send a message home every once in a while, you’ll alienate and possibly offend your loved ones back home.  Find the way that’s best for you and send a message back home just to say hello.  Your friends and family will love the updates, even if the postcards find their way to their mailboxes just days before you get home.