Holiday Phone Number

What phone number can you give out to your friends and family when you go away on holiday?

Many people still like to make a complete break from routine when away on holiday – they want peace and quiet, without the disruption of phone calls and day to day events.

But there are still situations where it’s good to know that people can get in touch with you in certain circumstances:

• What if some serious event happened, such as a family member taking ill or being in an accident?
• What if your house was broken into, or there was accidental damage to your property from a storm?
• Would you have liked to know the outcome of a milestone event for a friend, like exam results, driving test or job interview?
• Or maybe it’s just that you wanted to keep up with current social events.

It can also be more relaxing, not worrying about whether there are problems with your business, whether self-employed or not, just knowing that you could be easily contacted should your staff or colleagues deem it to be essential. Indeed, you can probably trust them to err on the side of NOT calling you and disturbing your break unless they really have to – because you could quickly and easily resolve a problem, or because it is serious enough to need a decision which only you can make.

The simple solution for a
Holiday Phone Number

The easy answer is simply to take your mobile phone with you, so that anyone can call you in the normal way. There are two problems with this:

a) It’s time consuming and disruptive: Your friends, family, colleagues and customers may not know (or care) that you are on holiday, and will contact you in the same way as normal – and expect the same response that they would normally get. This ties you down to checking your voicemail messages every day and returning calls.

b) It’s expensive: When using your phone abroad, you have to pay premium rates both for answering and making calls – in some cases these can be several dollars per minute. Charges for calls made/received abroad are normally excluded from your regular plan or inclusive bundle. Many operators require a hefty cash deposit from their newer customers before turning on this capability at all.

What you need to think about when giving out your Holiday Phone Number:

• What sort of holiday do you want, and who would you want to call you?
• is the phone the best way to keep in touch? Would email be more acceptable (you can always call back by phone)
• Is the phone number you give out expensive for your friends/family to call? Or would it be better to have a local number for where you are (often essential when making a taxi/restaurant booking or wanting to use a local service/plumber/builder etc).

You have several options:

• Using an existing number, but checking your voicemail messages from time to time. This usually needs you to make frequent international calls to check for messages.
• Creating a new number which also has voicemail, but which you can easily and cheaply access. SkypeIn can be a good option for this, allowing you to offer local numbers in many cities across the world.
• Create a new number at your destination. You can buy a SIM card and use this with your existing mobile phone – this gives you a local number, and allows you to call local and national numbers at lower rates than with your home account. Again SkypeIn can also be used to provide a local number at your destination should this help.
• Bypass the mainstream phone system completely, and use internet calling from Skype, MSN or similar to make cheap or free calls.
  
  By thinking ahead before you travel, checking out the best deals and having a plan, you can relax on holiday knowing you can be contacted on your terms and call home without blowing the budget.