Technology: A Necessary Evil when Traveling Overseas
Posted on November 21, 2012 No Comments
Technology is a necessary evil. As much as I would have liked go completely off the grid on my trip overseas, I brought two major pieces of technology with me on the trip: my iPhone 4S, and my Nikon D60 DSLR camera (with two lenses).
Me! Shooting in Venice.
Prior to the trip, my phone was the biggest hassle. I don’t remember the costs exactly, but Sprint’s international rates were much too high for my liking. I was worried that given all the data my phone downloads, texts that come in, and calls I receive, my phone costs could tally up to more than $1,000 for one week. My boss wasn’t going to pay for it, so I abandoned the international plan real quick.
I looked into two other options while trip planning; either unlocking my iPhone and purchasing an international SIM card, or just turning my phone off and buying a temporary phone in Italy. I wanted an option coordinate with my family “on the ground” in case we all decided to go our separate ways. However, both of these options seemed like so much work, and would take some coordination in Italy, so I opted for the far easier and zero-coordination route instead: Airplane mode on, Wi-Fi off unless at the hotel.
Airplane mode basically means that your phone can’t receive or send any data through the network at all. Your voice messages, emails, and texts will all wait for you, I don’t know, somewhere in outer space, until you return to your home country and turn airplane mode off. The downside is that you really cannot make a regular phone call with your phone, and you can’t use any of the apps you have likely come to rely on, like Google Maps. I took my chances. Like a tourist 10 years ago, I visited the TI (tourist info center) in each new town, picking up maps as I went. (Anyway, they make great keepsakes for scrap books.) We DID manage to lose each other for one very frustrating day, but we all eventually returned to the hotel about five hours later and found everyone.
When I needed to use my phone, I did it at the hotel. Each hotel had reliable Wi-Fi, so I could get e-mail once per day, check Facebook and Twitter, and schedule FaceTime hangouts with ManFriend – which were great fun, since by the time I reached him I”d already had a glass of wine or two and was completely exhausted with bags under my eyes. He always looked very good on FaceTime, while I was always a tired mess. Oh well. Others on the trip had success with iPads using this method, too.
My Aunt used her iPad to talk to her family over Wi-Fi.
My phone turned out to be quite handy because midway through the trip I broke my camera lens. I’m incredibly lucky I didn’t break the entire camera; thankfully I have a shock-proof, water-proof case on it (also known as armor). The armor worked perfectly, unfortunately it did not cover the lens. The lens lock shattered all over the marble floor when I dropped the camera. I brought the camera home, found a tiny screwdriver and tried taking off the broken lens lock, intending to replace it with the functioning one from my telephoto lens. Unfortunately, it only made things worse.
In a moment of helplessness and frustration, I posted to my Facebook page (via Wi-Fi on the iPhone), inquiring whether anyone knew of a good camera shop in Rome, where we would be traveling the next day. Serendipitously, a friend from college who now is a photographer in Missouri saw my plea, posed the question on a blog he frequents, and got a recommendation from someone who studied photography in Rome! I looked up the shop on my phone, got directions from our hotel front desk, and took the train to the shop, called Sabitini.
Sabitini was incredibly professional and helpful – they could not fix the lens lock in-store, but they did have a new lens in stock that was slightly better quality and under my price point of 200 Euro for a new lens.
Conversation on FB about my broken lens.
I am still in awe that this amazing connection happened. Without my phone and my personal network of talented friends, I would have lost at least a day wandering around to different stores looking for help, and could have possibly missed out on all my pictures in Rome. Instead, my family barely lost an hour of the trip, I came home with a great souvenir (and story), and I didn’t spend any money on a phone plan to make it all happen.
Category: Money
Tags: Italy , Travel
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