Get ready to travel! Prepare your phone for a trip almost anywhere with these tips, tricks, and gadgets. Get the details on different phones, plans, chargers, covers, dust plugs, and much more.
Safeguard Your Phone If Left or Misplaced
There are plenty of apps that use GPS location to help you find lost devices, like Apple’s Find My Phone. Here’s a fun, creative way to leave return instructions on your device. Create a custom lock screen message, like “If found, return to___” or “Please call ___ if lost”. It’s a customizable way to keep your phone locked, while still providing a way to return it. Now, not everyone is an upstanding citizen, so the next step can be crucial.
If a phone is left, lost, or misplaced, I suggest calling your provider to temporarily stop service. It will prevent people from using up your data. If you are traveling internationally, it will also stop the finder from placing pricey international calls.
Study Up on Your Plan and Your Phone’s Limitations
Contact your provider to learn more about your phone and plan before traveling internationally. You need to ask questions about international data roaming, global messaging packages, and rates for all options. Consider which features you need, and which ones you can do without. You may also purchase prepaid country-specific SIM cards or phones for a more economic approach. Telestial and Brightroam offer a wide range of these options.
Take Your Favorite Gadgets and Protective Tools!
Consider taking some type of portable charger for when you are nowhere near an outlet. Some, like the HUB 3000 and the New Trent iCarrier, even have a micro USB port. I would also suggest an international outlet adapter for traveling overseas. That way you can charge your phone and use other goodies. Just be sure to pack things like this in your carry-on or backpack so you can access them easily. The last thing you want is to have to sift through perfectly packed luggage and souvenirs just to charge your phone in the middle of the airport.
Keep your phone safe. Cases like the Life Proof or OtterBox are good options for a number of different scenarios, but many overlook the importance of keeping phone ports clean. Port Plugs has a dust plug for everything. Keep your earphone jack and other ports clean a free of sand, dust and uninvited grime. Just be sure you are purchasing the right anti dust plug for your device. Check out the shop here for further details.
Travel Apps Galore
There is a plethora of mobile apps that could dig you out, should you find yourself in the proverbial ditch, while on your journey. You should try to grab a few of them up before you leave. This gives you time to learn how to use them, what they offer, and how they can help you on your trip. Some examples are flight and hotel apps, maps, itinerary apps, language-translation apps, destination/travel guide apps, and weather.
Optimize Your Phone for Travel Media
Download some entertainment before you go. You may be in for a long road trip with the kids, heading to a place that simply has no tunes, or even end up with a layover from “you know where”. So, do yourself a favor, and grab a few episodes of your favorite series, set up a streaming account or grab a few albums that will keep you sane while you get where you’re going. It helps to do this ahead so that you don’t end up in a place where you can’t get it- and subsequently- don’t have it.
One last thing I will stress is storage space! Imagine you are on a safari and a giraffe comes up and starts nibbling on your wife’s ear… after giving him the look of disapproval, you may just want to snap a picture. But wait, you are out of storage! Get some extra cloud storage, or dump all photos and videos to an external storage at the end of every day. Just be sure that if something amazing happens, you can prove it.