Your phone: How to limit roaming charges while traveling

Buy a plan. Contact your provider to see if it offers international roaming plans. AT&T and Verizon Wireless offer packages starting at $5 a month for calls and $25 a month for 100MB of data.

Utilize hot spots. Should you go abroad without a roaming plan, switch your phone to airplane mode and shut off “auto-sync.” “If free hot spots are scarce,” consider buying a Boingo Wireless plan ($8 a month) or a mini-router from FON, either of which provides you access to “thousands of free and paid Wi-Fi zones worldwide.”

Rent or buy. To get a local number once abroad, purchase a SIM card and insert it into an “unlocked” GSM phone. Too complicated? Before you go, you can also rent a phone with a data plan at fonerent.com or wait until you arrive and buy “a simple local phone” along with a prepaid credit.

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Source: Travel + Leisure