Anyone expereince problems of contacting home when travelling?
Or more general; what sort of problems/expereinces have you came accross whilst travelling?
I recently did some traveling to China and had a worrying experience of not being able to contact home when I arrived. I wasn't sure if I was using the wrong international code, if it was my phones sim card problem, or what not. Anyways, it was less me worried, more my family. Took me a while to find a place with a computer and net connection to use for free and was in English.
I was wondering if this has happened to anyone else, or something similar?
And how do you go about to avoid this problem? (Other than writing down the correct numbers and bringing a sim card ready for the destination country... I actually done both; but it failed)
This is actually for my final year Industrial Design project for University. So the more replies the better!
Thanks,
Nathan
Reply to this Hello Nathan 😊
I think it is always wise to tell your family that you will phone or email as soon as possible but ask them to not worry if they dont get that call on the first couple of days because flights get delayed, electricity supplies in other countries are not always good, you have to find an internet cafe or somebody to help you figure out the phone system..... This might stop them from worrying.
Also when you are leaving major cities tell family you will contact them if you can only because you dont know how good or bad the comunication system will be in the place you are going to.
Mel
Reply to this Hi Mel,
Thanks for the reply and I guess it will vary for each person how much the person/their parents are worried.
and that's some good advice; "...ask them to not worry if they don’t get that call on the first couple of days because flights get delayed"....but there is still the problem of those few days of no contact
“Use an Internet Cafe”; Requires a PC, your method of communication to be known by the recipient
“Ask Someone”; Language problem; Safety issues
A lot of things to consider here, which is great! Please keep replying folks
So has anyone else experienced anything similar, it can be any sort of contact i.e. problems blogging, problems meeting new friends etc?
Reply to this One way to get general help and make some friends who speak your language when living abroad is to get involved with the expat community.
You could check on the following site to see if there are expats living near you or at least ones living in some part of China who can help you out with advise in English.
Expats Reply to this 
