Hey guys! I am at CES in vegas and I’m running between shoots right now, but someone just asked me how I manage my data on the go and I thought this would make a really good YouTube video and blog!
I travel a lot and I’ve come home to some pretty brutal, unexpected, expensive phone bills in the past. So I’ve learned some really great tricks to make sure that doesn’t happen anymore that I wanted to share with you. Here are my top four tips for staying social on the go, and not blowing up your phone bill.
The first tip is managing your data. I’m with Telus and they have this amazing package called US Easy room. It allows me to use my phone like I would normally at home, but while I”m in the States. I pay 7 dollars a day and I only pay as soon as I actually send a text message or make a phone call from the States. It’s a really great package, and for you, just ask your phone provider if they have something similar to this, instead of having to pay a flat rate a month it just makes more sense to pay per day.
The next step that I have is using Wifi. On personal trips especially, you should just turn your data completely off and only use Wifi. This is a little limiting because you can only check your email, your apps, what ever it may be, when your out and connected to a wifi source, so I’ll do this at restaurants and hotels and I just turn my phone on airplane mode – especially on trips where I don’t want to be connected the whole time. Another little tip is push notifications. Turn them off when you’re travelling. If your data roaming is still on and your push notifications are still on, it means that you’re using data without even realizing it. Especially with your emails, you want to make sure that you’re manually checking it and you’re not doing the automatic updates every 15 minutes. With apps like Facebook or Instagram, also be sure to turn those notifications off so you’re not over using your data while your on the road.
The last tip is to unlock your phone. This is really only if you’re travelling for an extended period of time. If you are, you can unlock your phone, and there’s a small fee attached to it, and you can grab a local SIM card and have local fees apply, instead of using your plan at home.
My bonus tips are to make sure that you backup everything on your phone because you don’t want to loose your phone or have your phone stolen while you’re travelling and then not have anything backed up when you get home. Yes, it’s a bummer to have to buy a new phone, but it’s an even bigger bummer if you loose all of your contacts and all of your data that you had on your phone. The next thing is a really great tip, and it’s come in handy for me before. One of my friends lost her phone on a trip last year, but before we left for the trip, she put her email address, her name, and a picture of her face on her home screen so that if she did loose it and a good samaritan happened to pick it up, they would return it. Turns out she did end up loosing her phone and she had it returned to her! Last, but not least, people keep asking me how I possibly have any battery left when I’m constantly on social, especially on the road. My secret weapon is a mophie powerpack charger. I’ll leave a link for it below. Basically, you just keep it plugged into your phone and your phone will stay charged all day long.
Thanks so much for watching you guys! If you liked this video, hit the Like button below, subscribe and comment with any travel nightmare stories you have about your phone bill or any travel tips that you can include. I would love to hear them! If you want exclusive tips and tricks that I only share in email, make sure you subscribe on my website! Thank you for watching, happy travels wherever you go next, and bye from Vegas!
Mophie Power Charger: http://bit.ly/1mRAE6N
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