Cell phone charges while in Canada
Hi, This is my first post. We are interested in getting a Class B van in a year or so. We have reserved a van of this type in Canada for a week in September. We're planning to stay in Canada for...
Forum Discussion
Whether you are from Canada heading south or from the U.S. heading north the issues seem to be the same - cellphone/smartphone/data charges in the host country seem to be exorbitant.
The things we've done to pretty much eliminate any crazy charges are:
- call your own service provider to make sure you understand the rules.
- use wifi campgrounds for your data needs.
- let everyone you would normally be in contact with know that e-mail is the best way to get hold of you - and work to stay at parks that offer wifi.
- consider purchasing the services of an internet-based phone company for phone calls - we have Magic Jack and it works fine if you are tapped into a quality wifi signal - there are a number of other services.
- tell the folks who might want to contact you every day to cool their jets - you're on vacation!!
- if your concern is emergency communications while on the road (there are a LOT of "dead" spots in rural Canada) then consider renting a satellite phone(on our own 2 month trip to Alaska a couple of years ago we had rented a sat phone for just this purpose - cost was not at all outrageous and the peace of mind it gave was worth every penny.)
Jay
The things we've done to pretty much eliminate any crazy charges are:
- call your own service provider to make sure you understand the rules.
- use wifi campgrounds for your data needs.
- let everyone you would normally be in contact with know that e-mail is the best way to get hold of you - and work to stay at parks that offer wifi.
- consider purchasing the services of an internet-based phone company for phone calls - we have Magic Jack and it works fine if you are tapped into a quality wifi signal - there are a number of other services.
- tell the folks who might want to contact you every day to cool their jets - you're on vacation!!
- if your concern is emergency communications while on the road (there are a LOT of "dead" spots in rural Canada) then consider renting a satellite phone(on our own 2 month trip to Alaska a couple of years ago we had rented a sat phone for just this purpose - cost was not at all outrageous and the peace of mind it gave was worth every penny.)
Jay
