New York City - A Guide to FREE stuff for Virgins

*Note: If you are an actual virgin, this article may or may not pertain to you. So you've NEVER been to New York City, eh? Well. That sucks. But fortunately for you, either you're about to embark on said journey, or you're sitting at home/work wishing you were making the trek. Either way, I'm about to break it down for you, city style. Here is my Top 10 Things you must do in New York City for a First Timer. Most of these...

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New York City - Basic Training

New York can be daunting. You come over that hill in the cab from JFK and see the city sprawled out in front of you and can't help but feel a little intimidated. Here are my basic essential tips for navigating the city. Take a cab from Laguardia. JFK and Newark both have train stations within the airport linking you directly to the city. Take either one towards Penn Station (tho don't get off at Newark Penn Station if...

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Best hostel in the world for ser: Rossio Hostel - Lisbon, Portugal

I’ve never been one to use my blog as a space to promote certain tours, hostels, airlines or what have you.  But I am making an exception.  Because this place was the most amazing hostel I have ever been to.  I did not get paid, compensated, not even a pat on the back or a “thanks a lot” for writing this.  I am writing it because I want to make sure that this hostel is repaid for giving the backpacker community a true gem, and the best way to do that is to get other people to go there.  Here is my attempt to convince you to go to the Rossio Hostel in Lisbon. Go. Seriously.

When we arrived, it was just before 11. We expected to be turned away, bags shoved in a luggage room.  Luckily, our rooms were already ready. Luck. After giving us the typical hostel schpeil… oh wait, it was not typical. She first ran down and showed us all of the hostel amenities which included:

• A large common room with beanbags (why don’t we all have these anymore? They ROCK!) couches and chairs
• A large fully stocked kitchen with 24/7 cereals, fruits, juices, tea, coffee and the normal hostel leftovers
• Free wifi through the entire building

Our rooms were simple enough, but with subtle importances only the trained hostel goer would notice. Our bunk beds were made of solid wood.  That means no obnoxious IKEA metal bunk bed creaking.  That means when Joe in the bunk on bottom is snoring and tossing and turning, at least you only hear/feel the snoring. The linens were actually soft. They were actually comfortable and the pillows were actually stuffed and not those paper lined kind they give you on airplanes. There were countless outlets, including a mini lamp attached to the headboard of every bed. Individual lighting, individual plugs. Hello?! Awesome. The room was also spacey. Although the hostel could have easily fit at least two more bunk beds in the room with some rearranging, there was no need to overcrowd, and the space was much appreciated.

The bathrooms were spotless. They were spacey, had plenty of outlets and plenty of mirrors.  The toilets actually worked, and worked well.   But what was so amazing about the bathrooms were the showers. I have literally… not taken a shower like this in years. They were so great, that while Emily and I were showering next door to each other chit chatting (throwback to the old Theta days!!) I actually commented about how I wanted to just sit (yes, sit… on the inside built in seat) and chat while the water ran. The never-ending supply of very hot water, that is. Huge shower heads with plenty of pressure, large showers with plenty of leg-shaving room.  Each shower also had a little changing area outside with a little footstool next to the towel hook to pile your clothes in case any water got on the ground to wet them up.

As if that weren’t enough, the breakfast at this place was enough to lure in most people on it’s own.  Every morning (at any time… let alone… no “breakfast only served from 7-7:15” garbage) the hostel owner cooks an AMAZING breakfast with an unlimited (yes, you read that right) supply of scrambled eggs, toast, handmade from scratch crepes with nutella, several selections of cereals and mueslis, tea, coffee, fresh juices, and fruits. And it’s FREE the morning after a night at the hostel. And, if you’re like us, and arrive early in the morning but had not booked the hostel the night before, for only €2 you can enjoy the same royal treatment.  Which obviously we took up for sure.

I know there’s not a lot I can do to get people here, as most people use the reviews on hostelworld.com or other sites to fuel their hostel decision making process, but if I can influence anyone to take a second glance at this place when they’re looking for hostels in the Lisbon area, I will feel like I’ve done my part in good society.   The family running this hostel are good people and deserve to be rewarded by full rooms and good reviews.  So PLEASE! Go stay here when you’re in Lisbon and leave them a good review. I promise, for <€20 a night, you won’t be disappointed.

Emily lounging in a hostel bunk

The view from my bedroomThe computer room area

The main common room area

Dear Gabbey: How do you score SWEET flight deals?

Dear Gabbey, I’m going to New Zealand to snowboard sometime this summer (their winter). I have no idea where to start with finding a flight and would like some help.  Do you have any tips? – Jenny

Jenny, dear - I am Gabbey… of course I have tips. Finding cheap flights can be a daunting task, especially when you’re travelling to locations you are unfamiliar with. I have a certain set of steps I take to find cheap flights and I’ll go ahead and outline them for you now.  There are plenty of other ways to find cheap flights, but this is my method – take it or leave it.

Situation #1: You know where you want to go and (roughly) when

If you don’t know about Kayak, it’s fantastic.  It works whether you are traveling domestically in the US, from US abroad or even between international destinations.  Although the premise of Kayak is simple, finding the cheapest flights on it is not necessarily straight forward. If you already know where you want to go and when, the search process is easy.  Enter in your beginning and ending locations and dates.  I ALWAYS select flexible date search with +-3 days but my travel dates are usually flexible. I do highly recommend this option though. Also check the checkboxes next to “include nearby airports” and if you want, you can customize WHICH nearby airports are shown by clicking the “custom” link on top of each location.I think the “Compare sites” option is annoying, so I uncheck all of those boxes.

At this point, it is a good idea to look at the calendar shown to the right of the search boxes. 

In this case, I had asked for flights leaving the 1st and returning the 8th.  Notice that the flights at the end of this month are much cheaper (by over $200) and since I am flexible, I would rather go later in the month and save a few bucks.  I will change my dates to 7/25 outbound and 8/5 return.

Kayak then chugs and plugs and scours the internet for all things flight goodness. The cheapest flight will pop back up at the top of the list.  Make sure the selected dates hold the cheapest fares for the week.

Feel free to change the filters along the left hand side, but notice that these will usually eliminate the #1 cheapo flight. If the flight you want on is a non-stop, this is likely the cheapest flight out there.  Your journey has ended, congrats.  If your selected flight has connections, there still may be a cheaper option for you yet, or if not, at least you can make the most out of it.

Consider alternate transportation from your layover, or at least stay a couple days!

In the above example, the cheapest flight I found showed one stop on the outbound leg.  If you click the “details” link below the flight information, the details of the flight will be expanded to show where and for how long your layover is.

In this example, the layover is in Brisbane, Australia for 3 hours.  Turns out, I’ve never been to Australia, and the thought of popping into the Brisbane airport for 3 hours when I’ve come all this way, just really sucks. I wanna see a kangaroo.

Extend your layover, Option 1: Ground transportation
Sometimes booking flights to a certain airport are just pricey either because it’s a small airport or only serviced by budget airlines.  Kayak searches SOME budget airlines, but not all.  For example, you will find flights on cheap European airlines like Easyjet, but not Ryanair (though Ryanair is rumored to be joining Kayak in the near future).  You will find budget Jet Blue, but not Southwest. So let’s say you want to travel from Tokyo to Malaga, Spain.  Your cheapest option will be to book on Kayak from Tokyo to London and then to catch a budget European flight from London to Malaga. You should also look into ground transportation like trains and busses or even ferries (which can be great for traveling between locations like England and Ireland, or Spain and Morocco).

So how do you find those cheap budget airline flights when they’re not listed on Kayak? Well it takes a bit of work, but it can be done relatively easy.  I start with wikitravel.org. Wikitravel is a great online encyclopedia of location specific travel knowledge.  What I use wikitravel for more than anything else though, is to find out what airports are near a city and who flies there. Once you find a city on wikitravel, go down to the “Getting In” section and note the airports nearby (usually will be noted which are major hubs vs. budget hubs).  Visit the airport’s sites directly and find a list of airlines flying into that airport.  From there, you can visit the airlines directly and look on their “Where We Fly” or similar to figure out the best ways to get into a city.  Ya, it’s a bit of a hunt, but you said you wanted cheap, not easy.

Extend your layover, Option 2: Stay a couple days
For this example, ground transportation between Brisbane and Auckland is not really feasible (definitely not for cheaper than a flight) but I want to see the town. I redo the search, but this time I set it up as a multi-city with a stop in Brisbane and Auckland.  Los Angeles to Brisbane on 7/25, Brisbane to Auckland on 7/29 and Auckland to Los Angeles on 8/5. This search returns a flight that is $90 more expensive, but $90 and I get to add another country to my vaca? DUH! Now I am satisfied with my flight choices and move on. 

Situation #2: You have no clue where or when you want to go, you just want out

If your travel plans are a bit more vague, a good idea is to start with a couple of different sites.  First (if you’re based in the US), you should check out Airefare Watchdog. This site allows you to put in your home airport and it will send you weekly (or daily, if you’re into that sort of thing) digests of the best destinations based on years of trending data. This site is PERFECT for travelers who are based in a city but like to take spontaneous weekend getaways or don’t necessarily have a specific destination in mind.
Another great site to get used to is LastMinuteTravel.com. Last Minute Travel allows you to search for flights (or even better, packages) to certain locations at the last minute.  Ok, well not LITERALLY at the last minute, but let’s say my travel plans change, and I want to book a ticket to New Zealand tomorrow. 

Yes, that is correct; $1000 for a flight that leaves tomorrow.  Not a bad deal at all.

Finally, we head back to Kayak for their “deals” section which allows you to search for deals from a city to a continent.  I use this feature A LOT. Try searching from LAX to Europe and see what happens.  You’ll often find great packages and deals you wouldn’t find elsewhere.  If nothing else, it gives a place to find inspiration on where you actually want to go.

If you’re not sure what’s a good deal and what’s not, a good site to check out is farecompare.com which allows you to enter in a starting and ending location and will give you a range of typical airline prices grouped by travel month. 

Rookie Mistake – Hidden fees on budget airlines

Don’t look like a n00b. Budget airlines advertise discount fares often times because the LOAD on the hidden fees.  Ryanair is a prime example and the punch line of many-a-joke about hidden airline fees (from fees to use the restroom to seatbelt fees).  But you really need to take that into consideration.  Once when traveling from London to Galway, I found that I could save a day of traveling and pay only slightly more (advertised) to fly rather than boat/train/drive/bus. However, after beginning the booking process (and already having decided on flying rather than the alternative) I paid an extra €5 for them to print my boarding pass out for me (no printer), an extra €15 for a checked bag, then €30 in airport surcharges, an €8 fee to use a Visa credit card and Finally when I arrived at the airport, I found that my oversized bag was liable for an additional £56 in fees! I ended up paying double of ground transport because I was lured in by the cheap adverts.

How to keep blogging once you're #rtwnow

This entry is mostly geared towards a group of people known to me as “those #rtwsoon people.”  #rtwsoon is a “tag” used by twatters on twitter who are preparing for their ‘round the world (RTW) trip and are looking to share and absorb advice from their peers and those already on the road.  Unfortunately, I was already RTW when this hashtag was created, so in an attempt to rebel, I created #rtwnow which hasn’t taken off nearly as much, but hopefully will gain some street cred once more of those #rtwsoon people go on their trips already!

Anyway, being nosey, I listen in on the #rtwsoon conversations even though I’m not in the club, and one of the most recently voiced concerns has been over the frequency and ability to continue blogging and tweeting once you people are on the road. 

I started this whole travel blog thing after I started traveling almost 3 years ago (wow!).  And the transition for me was quite easy.  I didn’t do much preparation, a couple pre-trip posts, a new blog host (moved from LiveJournal.com to Off Exploring – which I mentioned in my post on travel blog platforms a couple days ago) and a promise to my mother that I would post EVERY day while I was gone.  That didn’t seem like a huge promise at the time, as I had been blogging almost daily on my LiveJournal and saw no reason why I couldn’t keep it up.

Enters the Eiffel Tower, Colloseum and crappy internet café bandwidth. Suddenly, I realized how daunting the task was going to be.  But I did it.  For 2.5 months, I backpacked around Europe and I published a blog entry every single day I was there. 

So how did I do it?

Set realistic goals
What are you trying to get out of your blog?  Are you trying to make an income? Are you trying to keep your family informed? Are you trying to keep a good travelogue to scrapbook when you get home? If you are trying to blog, or write, as an income, either solely or in part, you need to take into consideration the expectation of your readers and the devastating blow (ok, maybe a bit dramatic) your site ranking can take with a drop off in content.  Don’t believe me? Take a look at your site visits on average on days when you don’t post a new blog entry. If you’re keeping a blog to keep your friends and family informed, blogging frequently may still be at the top of your list.  My mom generally freaked her pants off if I didn’t write every 26 hours. But some people may be more comfortable posting weekly or even less frequently.  And if your blogging solely for your own personal nostalgia, then this is more of a question of how much detail you want to retain in your posts and how insanely long you prefer your posts to be.

Set aside time every [insert time period] to blog
Once you decide how often you want to post, getting it done is as simple as setting aside time and sticking to it.  I found that it was easiest to blog between 5 and 8 PM.  By that point, you’ve gotten most of your daily sightseeing completed and it’s around dinner time, which means the hostels are not bustling with the “let’s go out!” crowd just yet.  Keep in mind that from the time you start looking for an internet, get paid and signed on, check your e-mail and pump out a blog post, you’re talking at least an hour.  The less frequently you post, the more this time block increases.  For me, if I stuck to my 1 blog post a day, I could crank out the details of the previous night and the day in about 45 minutes.  This didn’t include time to upload pictures (which to me, was a secondary activity).  At this point in my life, blogging was not an priority, purely a travelogue and a way to keep in touch with my family and I had no interest in talking about anything besides what I had experienced in the past day or so.  

Don’t be afraid to change your mind
I do not blog on a daily basis anymore.  Mostly because my travel plans are not nearly as aggressive as they once were.  I used to travel for a couple of days in each city and so I had plenty of content to crank out a blog entry every day.  Now, if I were to do the same, my blog would be plagued with entries that started out “Well, I slept in until noon, walked to the coffee shop, read the newspaper and then worked on my [blog/website/tan/beer gut].” Not so interesting. So my blogging style has changed as my travel style has.  Now I focus more on finding specific things about a city and diving into them.  That takes a bit more planning and a bit more time to write. So I’m lucky if I get a blog entry out every 3 days – and I’m ok with that.

Be prepared
Ok, here comes the Girl Scout in me, but it’s a pretty obvious afterthought that I must throw out there.  Will you spend time out of your day hunting for an internet café or will you only post if you have a laptop? Do you forget people’s names 30 seconds after introduction? I cannot blog without a notebook.  My Moleskin is my best friend and it knows more secrets about me than I even remember.  But it also helps me remember what the hell I did last night after my brain is overloaded from 100 paintings at the Louvre.  I can, however, blog perfectly fine without a computer, and have done it well for years.  I only brought my laptop on this most recent journey so I could work on some graphic design and back home IT consulting while I travel – not for blogging – and I’m finding that it doesn’t impact me much to have it. I’ve actually blogged less in the past 3 months than I have, well, in history.

Basically, know yourself, and know what you’re actually capable of and more importantly, what you actually want to do.  Arm yourself with the correct tools (I prefer to hunt with a shotgun, but you may be a crossbow kinda gal).  Don’t be afraid to change your mind. And don’t push yourself.  A quote I saw once in an article about writing said "Don't ride a bike with the brakes on." If blogging is keeping you from doing what you came to do (i.e. travel) then it’s not worth it.  You must maintain equilibrium in your nomadic lifestyle and your tendency to hole up in front of a computer for several hours a day.

So don’t give me that “it can’t be done” crap. Just set your priorities and get 'er done.

Dear Gabbey: What about cell phones abroad?

"Dear Gabbey, I am about to embark on a multi-country journey and I am confused what I should do about communicating with my friends and family back home.  I want to be able to call home for cheap (or free if possible) but am not sure what the best options are out there for me."

This week’s question comes to us from Bill.  Bill is not a real person. The reason Bill is asking this week’s question as a fictional character is because NO one submitted a question for Dear Gabbey this week (so sad).  So how about you help me out, and submit a question for next week by filling out this form.

So Bill, finding a cheap cell phone plan while you are traveling abroad can be a pain in the you know what.  We get so used to our own country’s dialing system that it is difficult to adjust to not only new country and dialing codes, but also how cell phone plans work in other countries.  This is also a different question to answer considering you are not from the US (Bill is from Iceland) and the answer to this question is somewhat dependent on how cell phone plans work back home.  However, the following is my general advice for anyone traveling in a country not their own.

Option 1: Buy an international plan on your existing phone

Option 1 is not a good option, in my opinion, but I put it out there because some people are rich.  I know, it’s not fair, but it’s true.  So for those of you who are rich, this is your option.  International plans are expensive and can be unreliable as you are assuming the contracts your cell company has worked out with it’s international affiliates will work how it should, which isn’t always the case. As an example, my current iPhone plan in the US would break down like this:

	iPhone (US) through AT&T	iPhone (US + International) through AT&T
450 Anytime Minutes (w/ Rollover)	$31.99	$31.99 plus $1.29/minute (for a one minute call from Ireland to the US) or add $5.99/month and get discounted call rates ($0.99/minute for the same one minute call from Ireland to the US – a good deal if you plan on making more than $20 minutes of phone calls)
iPhone 3GS Data Add-on	$32.00	$32.00 plus $0.0195/KB or approx $0.30/e-mail, $19.50/website visited, $2.93/foursquare check-in. Or $199.99/month for 200 MB of data with standard rates to apply after 200 MB.
Text messages	Included	Incoming included, $0.75/message for outgoing or $9.99 for 100 Intl Outgoing messages

According to a study done by Validas on www.macrumors.com, the average iPhone user uses 273 MB data/month, Blackberry 54 MB/month and 150 MB/month for all other smart phones. That equates to data add ons of $5,323.50 extra for an iPhone, $1053 for BB and $2,925 for all other Smart Phones.  That’s a slippery slope and not something I want to fall into accidentally.  If you are a short term traveler, or are not going to be in one specific area of the world for more than a month, this may be a viable option, but in my opinion, it’s not that great.  When I traveled with my Treo 650 about 2 years ago, I came home from a 2 month stint in Europe with a $350 cell phone bill. Contrastly, I’ve been in Ireland for 2 months and have spent $0 in addition to my normal iPhone plan and have shelled out about $50 for a local Irish cell phone #.

Option 2: Bring a cheapo SIM unlocked phone and use on any GSM network abroad

This, in my opinion is the best option for most users.  Basically how this works is you bring along a cheap SIM enabled (ask your carrier if your phone is SIM – I believe only Sprint and T-Mobile in the US still do not use SIM cards) phone and when you arrive in a specific country, you buy a prepaid SIM card for that country.  For example.  I have a Samsung SGH-J700i slider that I bought for $25.  When I arrive in a country, I walk into the first mobile Carphone warehouse store (one that sells plans on multiple carriers) and I ask for the cheapest pre-paid SIM card.  They will usually let you start out with about $10-20 credit which will get you about  200 text messages or cell phone minutes.  Most of my minutes actually count mobile to mobile (as I’m calling people on my network, O2) and so most of the time you end up getting a lot more than that.

With a SIM unlocked phone, you can switch out your SIM card every time you go to a new country and, although you have to get a new number each time, you can remain relatively free of the traditional contractual charges from your home-based cell plans.  It’s also pre-pay, so there’s no real chance of you going way OVER your allotted usage.  Save all of your phone calls to back home for Skype (a free internet based service that allows you to call other computers for free, or unlimited calls to landlines and cell phones in a certain country for $5/month.

If you have an iPhone, your ability to make even more cheap phone calls increases with a combination of Google Voice and Skype for iPhone.  If you’re interested in learning more about that, take a look at the post I wrote on setting up an iPhone for international usage. HOWEVER, the iPhone (although SIM enabled) is NOT unlocked and can only be unlocked by Jailbreaking it (a process I do not necessarily recommend) so do NOT think you can switch out your iPhone SIM card for a local version.

In Summary

Buy an unlocked SIM enabled cell phone at home (if you don’t already have one) and when you arrive in your first destination, pop into the first Carphone Warehouse you see (or equivalent) and buy a prepaid SIM card. Use this phone for making travel arrangements and contacting any friends you meet locally. Save the long boring phone calls to Aunt Milly back home for Skype.

5 Steps to Use your iPhone Abroad for Less than $7/Month

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED. CLICK HERE TO READ THE UPDATED ARTICLE ON USING YOUR IPHONE ABROAD DATED FEBRUARY 22, 2011.

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by CarbonNYCFor those of us lucky enough to have an iPhone, the thought of leaving our comfy local service contracts and venturing off into the distance can leave us somewhat, confused. Unlike most sim card carrying cell phones, the iPhone makes it downright difficult to switch service providers without signing on to a new contract, breaking existing contracts or jailbreaking our precious pieces of metal.  For me, the thought of jailbreaking my $500 iPhones 3GS left me shuddering in fear, even with my decently techy brain. 

So as I embarked on my first RTW trip accompanied by my new fangled travel companion, I reckoned I should do a bit of research on how and what I would be charged abroad and if there is a way to make the iPhone work for me while I’m abroad, and not the other way around.  I have it set up so that my friends and family can call a LOCAL US number, and reach my iPhone as long as I’m in wifi range.  I also have it set up so that I can call ANY US number for free as long as I am in wifi range. 

The following are my findings.  Please feel free to contribute your opinions or personal findings as I am constantly changing how I use my iPhone and hope that I can learn as much by writing this post as I did from the hours of research I did on Google before I left.  This information applies mostly to American iPhones going abroad, but is not exclusive.  Most of the prices are about American iPhones, but most of the advice can be used no matter what country you call home.

How to make sure you do not get charged the big bucks

If you decide to cancel your iPhone service, your iPhone essentially becomes a glorified iPod Touch.  I, however, am lucky enough to have a fully reimbursed iPhone plan in the states, so I get to keep my number and my “emergency” service.  The first thing you should do is turn off Data Roaming BEFORE you leave your home country.  I make the mistake of not doing this until my plane landed in Tokyo and I paid about $10 for the blunder. This option can be found under Settings -> General -> Network.  On this same page, you should turn the “Enable 3G” to Off.  Also, if you're into saving battery, only enable Wifi and Bluetooth when you are actually using them.  Being off network will save you heeps of battery life as well.

Location Services may be left on, as it uses GPS signal (no data charge) and only loads map data when you are within wifi range. All incoming text messages are free.  Outgoing text messages are either an additional $9.99/month for 100 messages or $0.75 a piece once you’re international.  If you choose to leave your phone option enabled, all calls are charged based on local rates.  If you choose to pay a $5.99/month fee, you can get discounted rates, and these are generally good enough to pay back the $5.99 fee after the first 20 minutes of usage. 

How to pay $0 extra on your regular iPhone bill but make unlimited calls back home

So here is where my plethora of research can practice can actually do you good.  Having an iPhone is all well and good, but with the thousands of applications out there, it can be difficult to figure out how to make the iPhone work the best for you. In addition to turning off the services mentioned above, here are 5 steps to use your iPhone to the best of it's ability while abroad.

Step 1: Setup a Skype account

If you’re not already using Skype, you’re stupid.  Skype is free, it’s painless, and most people are on it these days.  The only real problem with Skype is that you have to be in front of a computer to use it.  Fortunately, our little iPhone friends act as computers and with the Skype application for the iPhone, you can talk on your phone like normal, access your contacts and check your Skype voicemail all from within the Skype application.  Call quality is based on wifi connectivity but is generally pretty good.  And did I mention, free? You can stop here, or you can go on.

Step 2: Subscribe to a Skype Unlimited Country Plan

So maybe you’re family and friends aren’t all on Skype or don’t have awesome Skype applications on their stupid crackberries.  The next step is to buy an unlimited Country Plan on Skype.  This plan is about $5/month for the US and allows you to call ANY US landline or cell phone (and toll-free) for unlimited minutes.  Basically, what that means is that I can use my iPhone through the Skype app to call ANY person I want as long as I’m hooked up to wifi.  Awesome.  Here is another great place to stop, but you can take it even further.

Step 3: Buy a Skype Online Number

Buy a (now discounted because you just bought an Unlimited Country Plan) Online Number for $20/year which gives your friends and family an actual local number they can call and free voicemail on Skype’s service.  For instance.  I pay a once a year $20 for a local Oklahoma number that my mom can call anytime she wants and it goes to my voicemail if I’m not within wifi range or it rings right to my iPhone Skype application if I am.  If I miss her call, I pick up my iPhone and dial right back to her cell phone.  This is a GREAT place to stop if you choose to disconnect your service from AT&T and don’t mind telling all of your friends and family about your NEW number (as it will be the one that shows up when you call them). 

Step 4: Forward existing service to Skype Online #

At this point, if you have your AT&T service still active, just enable Call Forwarding by going to Settings -> Phone -> Call Forwarding and have your iPhone number forward to your Skype Online Number.  I wanted my friends and family to still be able to reach me on my regular AT&T phone number (which is still active because I’m still on a US plan) but I didn’t want to pay international rates.

Step 5: Activate Google Voice

But of course, I took it a step further.  This is where Google Voice comes in (and the trip stops for those of you not from countries where Google Voice is active yet).  I got a Google Voice number (for free) and have my Skype Online Number set up as my forwarding number.  I set up my iPhone AT&T service to forward to my Google Voice number so all phone traffic goes through my Google Voice.  I have been using Google Voice as my work number for a while, so all of my clients and co-workers also call through this number.  All people calling my Google Voice # direct are referred immediately to my work voicemail (they are the only people with this number).  All people calling via forwarded service from my AT&T number are either sent to Google Voicemail, or forwarded to my Skype Online Number if I am on Skype.  The reason I use this is because I like Google’s voicemail system 1000 times better than Skype’s, but it’s not really necessary.  If you're not on Google Voice, but want to me, e-mail me as I have about 10 invites left.

Here is a table of how my iPhone service is setup.  For simplicity sake, I refer to my 10 year old AT&T cell number as my Oklahoma #, my work Google Voice number as my Long Beach # and my Skype Online Number as my Skype #.

	Behavior when I have Skype running on my iPhone within wifi range	Behavior when I am not in wifi range or when Skype is not running
Someone Calls my Oklahoma #	Call is first forwarded to Google Voice, then Skype where I pick it up on my iPhone	Call is forwarded to Google Voice which sends it to my personal voicemail greeting
Someone Calls my Long Beach #	Call is immediately answered by my work voicemail greeting	Nothing
Someone Calls my Skype #	Call rings directly on my iPhone	Call is answered by my Skype personal Voicemai

In Summary

Set up Skype.  Buy an online number with Unlimited One Country Calling for $20/year plus $5/month.

Setup your iPhone to forward calls to your Skype # (or Google Voice #).

As long as you are within wifi range, make unlimited calls back home to anyone you like for as long as you like for less than $7/month.

Thank Jesus for Steve Jobs and for the iPhone - if you're into that sort of thing.

Post a comment below and let me know if you have any tips or tricks!