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Australia Tourism: The 21st-Century Traveler

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The 21st-Century Traveler

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Veteran travelers usually carry some essential items to make their trips easier. Following is a selection of handy online tools to bookmark and use.

Visa ATM Locator (www.visa.com), for locations of Plus ATMs worldwide, or MasterCard ATM Locator (www.mastercard.com), for locations of Cirrus ATMs worldwide.

Intellicast (www.intellicast.com) and Weather.com (www.weather.com). Gives weather forecasts for all 50 states and for cities around the world.

Mapquest (www.mapquest.com). This best of the mapping sites lets you choose a specific address or destination, and in seconds, it will return a map and detailed directions.

Universal Currency Converter (www.xe.com/ucc). See what your dollar or pound is worth in more than 100 other countries.

Time and Date (www.timeanddate.com). See what time (and day) it is anywhere in the world.

Travel Warnings (http://travel.state.gov, www.voyage.gc.ca, www.smartraveller.gov.au). These sites report on places where health concerns or unrest might threaten American, British, Canadian, and Australian travelers. Generally, U.S. warnings are the most paranoid; Australian warnings are the most relaxed.

Using a Cellphone in Australia

The three letters that define much of the world's wireless capabilities are GSM (Global System for Mobiles), a big, seamless network that makes for easy cross-border cellphone use throughout Europe and dozens of other countries worldwide. In the U.S., T-Mobile, AT&T Wireless, and Cingular use this quasi-universal system; in Canada, Microcell, and some Rogers customers are GSM, and all Europeans and most Australians use GSM.

If your cellphone is on a GSM system, and you have a world-capable multiband phone such as many (but not all) Sony Ericsson, Motorola, or Samsung models, you can make and receive calls across civilized areas on much of the globe. Just call your wireless operator and ask for "international roaming" to be activated on your account. Unfortunately, per-minute charges can be high.

That's why it's important to buy an "unlocked" world phone from the get-go. Many companies sell "locked" phones that restrict you from using any other removable computer memory phone chip (called a SIM card) other than the ones they supply. Having an unlocked phone allows you to install a cheap, prepaid SIM card (found at a local retailer) in your destination country. (Show your phone to the salesperson; not all phones work on all networks.) You'll get a local phone number -- and much, much lower calling rates. Getting an already locked phone unlocked can be a complicated process, but it can be done; just call your cellular operator and say you'll be going abroad for several months and want to use the phone with a local provider.

For many, renting a cellphone is a good idea. In Australia -- reputed to have one of the world's highest per-capita rates of ownership of "mobile" telephones, as they are known here -- they are available for daily rental at major airports and in big cities, and increasingly from car- and motor-home-rental companies. The cell network is digital, not analog. Calls to or from a mobile telephone are generally more expensive than calls to or from a fixed telephone -- A60¢ (US40¢) a minute is a ballpark guide, although the price varies depending on the telephone company, the time of day, the distance between caller and recipient, and the telephone's pricing plan.

An advantage of renting the phone before you leave home is that way you can give loved ones and business associates your new number, make sure the phone works, and take the phone wherever you go -- especially helpful for overseas trips through several countries, where local phone-rental agencies often bill in local currency and may not let you take the phone to another country.

In Australia, mobile phone company Vodafone (www.vodarent.com.au) has outlets at Brisbane, Cairns, Perth, and Melbourne international airports, Sydney international and domestic airports and at stores in Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast. They cost A$6 to A$10 (US$4.80-US$8) a day, plus call charges and insurance, depending on the kind of phone and coverage you want. You can rent a SIM card for A$1 (US80¢) a day.

Two good wireless rental companies are InTouch USA (tel. 800/872-7626; www.intouchglobal.com) and RoadPost (tel. 888/290-1616 or 905/272-5665; www.roadpost.com). Give them your itinerary, and they'll tell you what wireless products you need. InTouch will also, for free, advise you on whether your existing phone will work overseas; simply call tel. 703/222-7161 between 9am and 4pm Eastern Standard Time, or go to http://intouchglobal.com/travel.htm.

For trips of more than a few weeks spent in one country, buying a phone becomes economically attractive, because many nations have cheap, no-questions-asked prepaid phone systems. Once you arrive at your destination, stop by a local cellphone shop and get the cheapest package; you'll probably pay less than US$100 for a phone and a starter calling card. Local calls may be as low as US10¢ per minute, and in many countries incoming calls are free.

True wilderness adventurers, or those planning on spending time in the Outback or other remote areas, should consider renting a satellite phone. "Satphones" are different from cellphones in that they connect to satellites rather than ground-based towers. A satphone is more costly than a cellphone but works where there's no cellular signal and no towers. You can rent satellite phones from RoadPost (tel. 888/290-1616 or 905/272-5665; www.roadpost.com). InTouch USA offers a wider range of satphones but at higher rates. Per-minute call charges can be even cheaper than roaming charges with a regular cellphone, but the phone itself is more expensive (up to US$150 a week), and depending on the service you choose, people calling you may incur high long-distance charges. As of this writing, satphones were very expensive to buy.

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