How to Call the USA from Overseas | Cheap International Calls

Are you headed out of the country for a vacation or work? Do you have friends or family living overseas? Don’t pay huge fees to call home or text your friends and family. If you have an iPhone, another type of smartphone, or even an iPod, chances are you can find an app that will let you make international calls for pennies. And if you're traveling, these apps can serve your needs for the entire time you’re gone (or even longer, in some cases).

As an example, last year, I spent seven weeks in Mexico on business, but I had no budget for long-distance fees and I didn’t want to spend hours looking for prepaid calling cards and pay phones.

The solution? I downloaded a free app (more details on that in a minute) that provides free texting and offers Internet-based phone service for about 2-cents a minute. The city I was in (Merida) had ample free Wi-Fi service, as did the place where I stayed, and I felt fully connected the entire time I was gone.

There are several apps that might suit your needs. Here are a few to get you started in your search:

• Free Calls and Texts by Mo+ (not many ratings, but averaging 4-1/2 stars for the iPhone version).
• Pinger (formerly Text Free with Voice) - This app has a few kinks but performed well before a few updates. It's still on the playing field.
• TextNow + Voice (nearly four stars, with more ratings than the above app).
• Vtok – Google Talk (tons of downloaded users, and a four-star rating).
• Vonage Mobile – Free (good ratings but appears to be new on the scene; 4-1/2 stars).

These are just a few apps on the market. Check with your friends to see if anyone has used these or other apps. Some apps even work with iPods and allow you to use that device like a phone.

First, search for phrases like ‘free texting plus’ or ‘free calls.’ Some apps offer only free texting (and this is great – if you don’t have one, get one), and some offer texting plus calls. A few might offer inexpensive calls but not texting, so decide what meets your needs and search for the best option. Since hundreds of new apps are released every week, research your needs and compare the ones currently offered.

Read the reviews! Many apps are changed and updated constantly, and at times the new version may not work as well as the original version (at least not until they iron out the bugs). Watch for comments about slow-loading, crashing or other issues that will affect performance or put you at risk of a failure during an important call.

If you’re just looking for a quick fix during a trip, don’t worry about things like customized rings or the color of the background. You can deal with that later; for now, you want good performance and a reliable platform for your calls and texts.

I used Text Free With Voice, and it was great last year. This year, it has been taken over by Pinger and there are problems with crashing, slow loading and other issues that would have greatly annoyed me a year ago. But, in fairness, the app gave me great service during my trip and I continue to use it for texting. It's also clear that Pinger is working hard to fix any bugs in the current version.

The good news is that if you can find Wi-Fi in a foreign country, you can also search for and download new apps. So even if you arrive at your destination and find the app you selected isn't the best one for your location, if you find a hot spot, you can try other apps. Most of these apps are free, because they make money on ads and on the small per-minute fee for calls. Accessing the Internet on your phone only while in a wi-fi spot, even in the USA, will save money on your cell data plan.

If you don't yet have a smartphone, consider getting one; access to the Internet is an important element of staying connected while out of the country.

Once you have the right phone, be sure to research and download the best app for your purposes as soon as you know you’re going out of the country, even if your trip is weeks away. This will help familiarize you with how it works, whether the sound quality is suitable and whether you spot any bugs.

Check to make certain it works where you’ll be traveling (some will not work in all countries; others work pretty much anywhere). If possible, try calling the country where you'll be traveling to see if there are issues with static, dropped calls or other transmission problems.

Then, start immediately to temporarily wean your friends and family away from calling and texting you on your other (original) number. The app will probably give you a unique phone number used exclusively for that app. This is okay – people are used to getting secondary numbers for texting now, and your friends will store the new number in their phones and use it while you’re gone.

Hint – you can even switch to the new number permanently for texts and save a few hundred dollars a year on your phone usage. I trained everyone to use only my new text number, and within months I was able to turn off that service on my cell phone.

Use the new service as often as you can before you leave town, so you can learn how it works and get the number into everyone’s hands. At $10 for about 1,000 minutes (plus you can get free minutes by viewing ads and downloading new apps) it was a cheap move for me to contact people and give them the new number.

The minute you’re out of the range of your service area (like, as the plane is taxiing for take-off), turn off all the data features on your phone. Put it on Airplane Mode, and also turn off the data plan, roaming and any other feature that grabs for a signal and charges it to your phone bill.

While you’re on your trip, you will connect to everyone through Wi-Fi. Have no fear; you’ll be surprised to find that as long as you’re within range of Wi-Fi (which is amazingly available in many countries now, for free), you can connect to the Internet and your new app will let you call and text. For only pennies.

The standard fees for making international calls the ‘usual’ way on a cell phone can run 59 cents a minute or even higher in some cases. Ouch! Instead, for about $10 (with plans charging 2-cents a minute) you can make and receive calls to other countries almost as easily as when you're at home.

Many apps will work for phone numbers in a variety of countries, so if you live outside of the United States, check for apps that work for your country (or for where you normally call) and the apps should work the same.

After using this app for a lengthy out-of-the-country trip, I would never consider paying huge fees for standard cell phone service on a trip. I also refuse to pay for a text plan, now that I know I can text for free.

These tips may or may not work for your personal situation, but if you only need international calling for a short trip, this may well serve your needs!