Lots of students now choose to include a year abroad at a foreign university in their degree. That, or they may decide to work abroad or teach English to the locals in exchange for lessons in the native language. Whatever you have decided to do on your year abroad, it’s always important to stay in touch with friends and family back at home. Of course you’ll be extremely busy, but what could you do to remind people you’re thinking of them?
The first thing you should do is sign up for a Skype account if you don’t already have one. This allows you to chat with other Skype users online for free, so make sure your friends and family are all signed up too. This is great because you can hold videochats if you have a webcam, so you can have a virtual ‘face to face’ conversation, or treat it as you would a phonecall using your computer’s microphone. You can even hold multiway conversations with a group so that you can keep everyone updated simultaneously.
Birthdays and special occasions can be especially tricky, and you might want to do something a little bit extra. Why not consider exchanging parcels throughout the year? Use a courier service to transport your packages safely. Many courier services now offer better rates than ever for countries all over the world, especially to countries such as China and the US, so you can rest assured that it will arrive safely and on time. Get creative to find gifts which are light and small enough to send without incurring mammoth postage costs.
If you will be texting and calling home a lot, make sure you find the best rate on your international phone contract or get a global SIM card or a phone card for the country you are in. This will keep costs down, and lots of companies now offer rates of just a few pence a minute so you can stay in touch for less.
If your laptop doesn’t have a microphone or a webcam or there is nowhere you can use them in private, there is always email or instant messaging. The advantage of these methods is that you can transfer documents and share links, so if you have a photo album you want to share with your family, you can link to this, or if you’ve taken a video clip you want to show everyone, this can be sent as an attachment in the email.
Katie Fishwick is a blogger with a keen interest in travelling. She spent her gap year travelling south east Asia.
