Reducing Your Cellphone Bill while Abroad

I have discovered a fantastic way to reduce your cellphone bill while you are traveling abroad (at least while you are in the UK).

Step 1: set up a Google Voice number. This is free and available with any Google account. In fact, I have a number for both my personal email and my school email. Note - do not try to use the Google Voice app while abroad. This uses your cellular data. What I'm about to tell you does not.

Step 2: Download the Talkatone app for your iPhone. I believe they have an Android version as well. Follow their setup directions. Note: it may be a good idea to do their setup instructions just before/after you leave as it could affect your ability to use voice and video chat through your Google email. It won't reduce your ability, but it might send all of your chats and video/voice calls that normally come to your computer to your phone.

Step 3: As soon as you leave the country, turn your phone to airplane mode and then turn wifi on. Airplane mode will turn all of your data off. Be sure to disable your cellular data first. While we were in the UK, occasionally, (about every other day) our phones would magically come out of airplane mode. This happened to all four of us at least once.

Step 4: Use the TalkaTone app as you would a phone for texting and calls. You must be on wifi. If you aren't going to be somewhere with wifi, consider hiring (renting) a wifi hotspot. The best option for wifi in the UK is Adam wireless. For just 9£ per day (about $14) you can have unlimited wireless. **They do charge a 100£ deposit, but they will then subtract your usage days from that deposit and refund the rest once you have returned it.** Couple this device with an external battery pack (the hotspots are limited to about 5 hours of battery) and you have phone/text access 24/7. TEP is an another option, which is cheaper, but you are limited (even on the "unlimited plan") to 400 MB x the days rented for the total amount of data used. I have no idea how much data we used, but as my family likes to Instagram and use social media regularly, that was a bonus for each of us to have a hotspot and be able to connect if needed through talkatone/google voice when we weren't together.

Note: Adam Wireless only works in the UK, so if you are traveling to Europe, you should look into TEP. They do have plans that work (for different prices) depending on where you are traveling. The main thing is to manage your data. You can't just sit around and stream movies or video chat all the time.

I hope this helps you in your future travels!

Please note: while I did use the Adam Wireless devices on my trip to the UK, I was not paid to endorse this product. Their customer service was top-notch and they kept in touch via email and phone before and during my trip. I thought this product was worth talking about here, but I was not compensated in any way for writing this post.

Tower of London, The Ravens, and the Tall-Hatted Guards

Here are 3 of my favorite pictures from our visit to the Tower of London on Friday.

If these don't remind you of children's books, then you read the wrong books as a kid.









and he finally made it back to the Guard Post:

Bath

One of the highlights of this trip is the day trip to Bath. Many students always talk about how much they enjoy spending the day there. While we were later getting there than we had hoped, we did get to stay for nearly 5 hours. We chose to do the Skyline bus tour which was spectacular. It was quite cool on the bus since we were outside on the top uncovered section.

A stop into Sally Lunn's buns for lunch has become a must for us while here. They are seriously some of the best bread I've ever eaten in my life.

Michelle and I spent some time just walking around and taking some pictures. I had a blast.

Here is the slideshow of the pics I took:

Sunday Funday

I completely forgot to post anything for London on Sunday. We started the day at St Paul's for service. It was fantastic, as expected. The acoustics were amazing. We left there and went to the Tower of London to pick up tickets for everyone to use throughout the week. Then we separated from the group and Michelle and I went to Speaker's Corner, over by Marble Arch. I'll admit, I didn't have the highest of expectations for this, but it was remarkable.

Basically, since the 1800's, people have been going to this particular area on Sunday afternoons and "preaching/talking" about whatever topic they desire. The audience talks back. On Sunday when we were there, there was a Christian talking about Muslims and wife-beating, a Muslim talking about alcohol drinking, a woman talking about finding peace without religion, and another man who was discussing the coming period of peace. It was quite interesting. The audience took part far more than I was expecting. It was also remarkably civil.

Pics from Speaker's Corner.

Here's a link to the entire day.

Traditional and Neuvo Art in the City

Today was a great day in London. We had plans for the British Museum, the British Library, and the Courtauld Gallery. We accomplished all three in addition to going to see a couple of Banksy graffiti pieces. We have walked a lot, ridden several buses, and been on the Tube regularly. All in all it was wonderful. I got to spend a large portion of the day with my family and we had a blast. It's been great to get to spend a little time with this group of students, too.

Here are the links to Day 4 which included The British Library, The British Museum, and The Courtauld Gallery.

Here are the two Banksy images we saw: the falling shopper and the rat, although the rat is missing the statement the goes with it, "If graffiti changed anything, it would be illegal."

We finished the evening with a great dinner with the kids at an Italian restaurant in a neighborhood around the corner from the BBC broadcasting building. It was awesome to walk around there and see it. I kept looking for Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May but to no avail.

Yesterday was another Marathon day, although we did get back to the hotel at a decent time for a little much-needed rest. We stopped by Stonehenge on the way to Oxford. Below are some of my favorite pictures from the day.

If you'd like to see all of my pictures from the day, you can check here.

Hampton Court on Day 1

I'm a day behind on posting this, but we did arrive yesterday morning at about 11am local time. We were able to easily get through customs very quickly. However, we did have a minor screwup when our coach couldn't get into the airport because of an accident on the roundabout. To make things worse, our tour guide didn't do a great job of helping us out on that one. We were quite glad that she was only with us to get the coach to us and then we were on our way.

Hampton Court was good. We started with a group picture so we wouldn't forget and got lunch. Fish and chips is always a safe choice. We had a couple of hours to browse around and enjoy learning about one of Henry VIII's place of residence.

We made it to the hotel by about 1730 and checked in without incident. We had the evening to ourselves and were able to just grab a bite to eat and an early bedtime. My sleep was absolutely fantastic.

Here's a set of images from Hampton Court: