The Luxury Travel Magazine
The Luxury Travel Magazine
Communicating to friends and family back home why traveling can be a challenge. Around 200,000 to 250,000 young people head off on a gap year each year, according to the Department for Education and Skills. Yet, a third of people are getting homesick halfway through a fortnight holiday.
One great way to prevent yearning for home while away is to keep in contact with family. But what are the best ways to do so? Here are four of the best.
As the pandemic showed us, video calls can be a great replacement for an in-person chat. And they can also be a great way to get a boost seeing the faces of your loved ones. Here, there are loads of options to choose from, including Facetime, WhatsApp, Skype, Zoom, Facebook Messenger, and Teams.
While abroad, lots of people use a virtual private network (VPN) to protect against hacking and data theft. If you’re using a VPN, though, it can be a good idea to select one with split tunnelling when video calling. That way, you can allow the video app to access the internet directly without a slowdown. That’s while still protecting the data being transmitted by other apps like banking and healthcare.
If you have only moved across America for whatever purpose, you can make sure that your internet remains the least of your worries. Therefore, opting for services such as Cox Internet would be a great relief for you. Have a steady connection at all times and even if you’re traveling someplace further within the country, you will still be able to connect to the internet via the provider’s Wi-Fi hotspots. It has all become quite convenient now.
Email might seem a little antiquated, but it’s a smart option if you’re off the beaten track and have limited Wi-Fi. Perhaps you even prefer communicating in a classic manner via the written word! The best bit is you can send the email to as many recipients as you please. Great for not needing to call everyone individually or re-type message content.
There are plenty of social media apps you can use to keep in contact. Keep everyone in the loop on Instagram by posting pics of you on your travels. Tag where you’ve been and who you’ve met. Create albums of stories and content that you can reminisce over the years later. And message friends and family back home through chat and comments. Additionally, you can edit using a video editor to enhance your memories with special effects and personalized touches.
You can’t beat the classics. Pick up a cheap SIM card in the country you are travelling to and pop it in your phone. This will give you cheap access to calls. If you want to stay super off-grid, consider a cheap dumb phone too. These are much less likely to be stolen compared to a smartphone.
Keep family and friends updated while you’re abroad. Making sure they are in the loop gives them peace of mind by letting them know you are safe. And by chatting to people you know regularly, you can keep homesickness at bay too.
