Bicycle Travel > General Discussion

Budget travelers: Phone calls from public phones (booth)

(1/2) > >>

BikeFreak:
Hi,

This is just a bit of info for those going budget:

Back in 2000 when I did my first cross country solo tour I used public phones to call relatives. That worked very well. Last summer (2012) I did another cross country tour and was not able to make any public phone calls any more, because:

1. Most public phones were removed
2. If a public phone was present, it did not work

I was only able to make phone calls because local people out of kindness let me use their phone.

Now, some people might ask why I did not carry a cell phone: I'm from Europe and I'm not interested in:

1. Buying a brand new US phone on arrival - and waist my time on that instead of cycling  :)
2. Using my own European cell which becomes crazy expensive to use.

plus, you need tri-band.

Lucas

pdlamb:
FWIW, many of the big-box stores will happily sell you a pre-paid cell phone at a pretty reasonable price.  Walk in to a Walmart, Target, or Best Buy, to name a few, plunk down $100, walk out with a cell phone and a couple hundred minutes.  Most are either big-name (Verizon, AT&T), or use the big-name networks.

BikeFreak:
Can you do this without leaving any home address, social security number etc?

Lucas

indyfabz:
During Cycle Oregon last year we stayed two nights in Ashland. There, we saw an honest-to-goodness phone both. The door was missing, but the rest was in tact an working.

DaveB:
Those no-contract, prepaid phones are very reasonable.  You can buy a selected number of minutes or buy unlimited minutes for a defined time period like 30 days. They are by far the cheapest way to get a US cell phone for a limited period of time. 

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page