When you’re traveling abroad, it’s great to be able to stay connected with your family or with business associates back home without racking up tons of expensive charges. An increasingly popular option is to buy an international prepaid cell phone. Making calls home from abroad can be ridiculously expensive if you try to do it with an ordinary cell phone, from a payphone, or from your hotel’s landline. The great thing about a prepaid phone is that you already know how much the calls will cost beforehand, and you’ll never be surprised by a 4 figure bill when you get home. You can never go over the limit that you’ve already prepaid on the phone’s account You have several options for these types of phones, though. So before you lay down your hard earned cash, it helps to do a bit of research.

Check out your local electronics stores and department stores. Establishments like Radio Shack or even WalMart sometimes carry phones that have the ability to call internationally and, more importantly, to call from an international location. You can often determine whether the phones have this capability simply by reading the package.
If #1 is a bust, or if you’re unsure, then check around at the cellular service providers in your area and ask them if they carry any international prepaid cell phones. Alltel, Verizon, and Sprint all make these types of phones, so if any of them have a retail outlet near you, you might just be in luck.
If you can’t locate a dedicated international prepaid cell phone, then a GSM prepaid phone might be your next best choice. These are phones that will work for you in the US, but that are also international capable. To use them abroad, you just need to buy a SIM card for the country that you’re in. You can either purchase this at home or once you get to your destination. You simply use the phone without the SIM card when you’re in the states, and then you pop the SIM in when you go to another country.
It might be expensive, but if you’re not going to be using the phone a lot when abroad and only need it for emergencies, you could just add international service to your existing cell phone if the hardware will support it. You’ll have to pay international roaming charges, but this might be your most hassle free option. How do you know if your existing cell phone has the capability to be used in another country? Well, you can ask your service provider. Or you can just check under the battery to see if the phone has a slot for a SIM card. If it does, then you’re all set.
Another option is to buy an unlocked phone. You can get these from a variety of locations on the Internet – eBay is pretty well known for having a good selection. An unlocked phone will be able to connect to any wireless signal, at home or abroad.
Finally, if you’re tech savvy enough, you could use the cell phone that you already own as an international prepaid cell phone. You simply unlock the phone, or pay a geeky friend to do it for you. You can find directions for doing this with a simple Google search. After you look at the instructions, you can then decide if it’s a procedure that you’re comfortable attempting.

Tristan Clark is a mobile cell phone hacking wizard, as well an inveterate international traveller. He’s recently been writing about how to choose the best international prepaid cell phone. Read more on his website, http://www.internationalprepaidcellphone.com
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