07.02.2012, 21:24
Jack,
As Matthias pointed out, there are a couple of pitfalls you can fall into moneywise. One of the biggest is Cell Phone and Internet. If you carry an i-Phone in Europe and use your own SIM card with your personal phone number, calls will cost you a lot. The "roaming fee" of the telecom companies will add massive charges to your phone bill if you use it outside of the US. If you use the i-Phone's cell connection (3G, UMTS, EDGE etc.) to connect to the internet, these costs will sky rocket. There are two ways to avoid this:
1) Use free WLAN hotspots in Starbucks, some public places and of course the homes of all the people you're going to meet.
2) Do what Matthias mentioned: Buy a prepaid SIM card for your phone. But this will only save you money in the country it was issued. Once you cross the border to the next country, you'd have to do it all over again.
My advice: Use WLAN whenever possible, use Skype or another communication tool to make phone calls over the internet while you have free WLAN connection. Use the phone with your original SIM card only for emergencies, i.e. short phone calls and you're gonna be alright.
Something else: If you plan to make videos and pictures during your trip, I advise you to back up the recordings carefully. e.g. you can copy every recording from your camera to your laptop. But you're going to fill up that hardisk space real quick. I suggest to bring an external harddrive along for the trip to backup to. The risk of damaging or losing it remains. I would therefore burn DVD copies as well. Might sound like overkill but consider the loss if something should happen to your videos or pictures.
Martin
As Matthias pointed out, there are a couple of pitfalls you can fall into moneywise. One of the biggest is Cell Phone and Internet. If you carry an i-Phone in Europe and use your own SIM card with your personal phone number, calls will cost you a lot. The "roaming fee" of the telecom companies will add massive charges to your phone bill if you use it outside of the US. If you use the i-Phone's cell connection (3G, UMTS, EDGE etc.) to connect to the internet, these costs will sky rocket. There are two ways to avoid this:
1) Use free WLAN hotspots in Starbucks, some public places and of course the homes of all the people you're going to meet.
2) Do what Matthias mentioned: Buy a prepaid SIM card for your phone. But this will only save you money in the country it was issued. Once you cross the border to the next country, you'd have to do it all over again.
My advice: Use WLAN whenever possible, use Skype or another communication tool to make phone calls over the internet while you have free WLAN connection. Use the phone with your original SIM card only for emergencies, i.e. short phone calls and you're gonna be alright.
Something else: If you plan to make videos and pictures during your trip, I advise you to back up the recordings carefully. e.g. you can copy every recording from your camera to your laptop. But you're going to fill up that hardisk space real quick. I suggest to bring an external harddrive along for the trip to backup to. The risk of damaging or losing it remains. I would therefore burn DVD copies as well. Might sound like overkill but consider the loss if something should happen to your videos or pictures.
Martin