Phone Calls From Around the World

   This summer, many of my friends will be traveling overseas. From my experience in the South Pacific one summer ago, I have some advice to give them. Don't buy phone cards. (At least not many)

   International phone cards are expensive. If purchased in America they can have rates as high as twenty cents a minute. Usually it is cheaper to buy phone cards in the country in which you are traveling. However, rates are still around seven cents a minute. Still pretty steep. My advice to those traveling abroad is to open a Tokbox account. Tokbox is a free video mailing and chatting website that requires no download. All you need is a camera on your computer. 

   

   Buying time at an internet cafe is much cheaper than buying minutes on a phone card. Plus, most of the computers in internet cafes (at least in my experience) are equipped with video cameras. You will most likely be checking email, facebook, etc. anyway. You might as well leave your family a video message rather than spending your precious euros, pesos, pounds, and yuan on international phone minutes. Skype works well as a video chatting site, and may actually work a little bit cleaner than Tokbox. The disadvantage of Skype is that it requires a download.  Computers in internet cafes usually have tight security and you will simply be out of luck if the particular cafe doesn't allow downloads.