Episode 72

This is part 7 of the icipici series of Traveling to Hungary. Today we are going to talk just a bit about cell phones and cell phone plans.

There are so many ways think about this that I am going to give you the questions you should be asking your cell phone provider before you go on a trip. They are the questions I ask each time I go overseas because these little international plans change quite frequently. They raise the prices, they give you more features, and sometimes I just get overwhelmed about all the options.

The bottom line for me is I need to be sure I can make international calls if a participant on one of our tours has a problem. I know I can probably access wifi a little bit every day, but I don’t really want to check email or text people unless it is an absolute emergency. I want to be as present as possible on the tour with the people in the group and engaged in what we are doing for the day. I don’t get to Hungary very often and I want to enjoy every moment! When I am at a hotel and if I have some downtime and want to check in, I can even do that if I am on airplane mode.

What do you need to do? Get to know your phone and get to know your plan. I have even printed out the instructions about how to do it in case I forget a step. Believe me, if you hit the wrong button while you are traveling, you can spend a lot of your data in a very short amount of time and not even know. Don’t count on others to know what is going on with your phone and your plan. You have to be the one who knows because you are the one who pays that bill. And it is no fun having surprises when it comes to a crazy international charge.

Contact your cell phone provider and ask them about their international plans. Is it a daily rate? A monthly rate? Are there different data options to choose from?

Ask them about the countries you are visiting, including your layover country. And ask them to email you about the step by step instructions on how to make sure your phone is ready for an international trip. And bring along a copy of that when you travel to refresh your memory!

One thing I do recommend is to download google maps to your phone if you are bringing one along so you don’t have to use data to look at a map. But be sure you understand how that works. When you are exploring, it is a good idea to have a little map with you—either a printed one or the one on your phone!

Check out all our upcoming tours at Magyar Living and contact us at [email protected] if you want to check out one of our Zoom sessions all about our tours to Hungary or Transylvania. We will have links to our tours and the ways to contact us in the show notes.

We have one more tip coming up. Stay tuned.