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The Best US Cell Phone Service For International Travelers
Last summer a friend and I traveled Europe for two weeks. Neither of us are the type of people who plan very well. In fact, getting onto our flight the only plan was Barcelona, a night or two in Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls and ending in Frankfurt a week and a half later. We didn’t know where we’d go and didn’t have lodging or trains booked. “We’ll figure it out,” we said.
We spent a little bit of time on trains…
Two weeks later, we had visited Barcelona, Pamplona, Montpellier, Nice, the Cinque Terre, Bern and Frankfurt. We had figured it out, on the fly. Half of our trains and all of our AirBnbs and hostels had been researched and booked on my phone without wifi, usually en route to whatever destination we had chosen a minute ago. We’d go to the train station, price out tickets and hop on whatever train we thought would get us there.
Our stay in Montpellier was decided at the train station when we couldn’t get all the way to Nice; I messaged back and forth with our Airbnb host from the train to coordinate our arrival. Our hostel in Frankfurt was booked from the floor of the Milan train station at 2am, with my phone at 4% battery. When we arrived in Frankfurt, we used turn-by-turn directions in GPS to discover that our hastily booked hostel was indeed in the Red Light District. Wondering what to do on Bastille Day in Nice, we looked up the best places to watch fireworks. Afterward, we looked up the best bars to go to and ended up finding a great bar with live music. Most importantly, I coordinated my home insurance over text message and wired the down payment for a condo purchase using the Chase website from a train. All without wifi, using cell service on my US phone for free.
How to Get the VIP Treatment with Concierge Services
I walked out of a meeting at 11am and felt a buzz in my pocket. I checked my phone to find 16 text messages in a group text from old college roommates, peer pressuring each other into buying presale tickets to the Outside Lands music festival in August. I debated whether or not I wanted in for about four seconds, until I remembered this delicious beast from last year:
Yeah, that’s a cheeseburger with a glazed doughnut for each bun, with sweet potato tots. Worth it.
I rushed back to my desk. Uh oh, the presale had already been up for an hour. I frantically typed my password, logged on to buy tickets and was greeted with this gem:
Too late!
Damn! Of course, presale tickets sell out in a few minutes. I resigned myself that I had missed the window of opportunity due to a work meeting. I’d have to wait for normal sale tickets, but then they’d be even more expensive and be gone even faster. Then it hit me!
Eat Healthy and Affordably with this Amazing Free Cookbook (and one recipe from me)
I studied abroad my junior year in college and lived in Perugia, Italy. It’s a beautiful little mountain town filled with college students attending three different schools. It actually reminds me of Boulder in that way.
Amazing food was plentiful. My favorite class was History and Culture of Food in Italy. There were as many restaurants, pasticerrias (bakeries) and cafes as you would want in walking distance. I got to try a few amazing meals in Perugia, but the majority of my meals were cooked at home since I ran out of money in October and illegally took on a job bartending to make some extra cash.
You know what they say. More euros, more problems (not true when you don’t have any euros).
How to Pick (and Manage) Credit Cards for the Best Travel Rewards - featured on Lifehacker: Two Cents
Photo Credit: 401kcalculator.org
Note: this article was featured on Lifehacker’s finance sub-blog Two Cents here!
Everybody loves to visit foreign countries and exotic lands, but it can be tough to save up for the travel that you’d like to do. Luckily, credit card miles are a great way to find your way to Europe for the trip you’ve always wanted.
Rewards credit cards aren’t for everybody. If you carry a balance on your credit cards, tend to overspend with credit or don’t have great credit history you may want to hold off on rewards for now. Instead, focus on breaking the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle and revisit this later. If you pay off your credit cards each month, have good credit history or get expenses reimbursed through work you might want to consider rewards cards.
This guide will help you choose the right cards, learn some strategies to earn extra points, and figure out how to best manage multiple credit cards responsibly.
Five Techniques for Remembering Names (and what to do if you forget)
The day I started my entry-level job out of college, myself and three other new consultants sat in a conference room together for the full day. We had all sorts of orientation presentations on the company, on benefits, on methodology and on client relationships. I introduced myself to the guy next to me – we’ll call him Mark. The next day we came in for orientation day round two and Mark asked me my name again. No problem! Then he asked me my name every day for the next week straight, at which point it got a little bit awkward.
Remembering names is enormously important. Dale Carnegie says “remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” Whether it’s somebody you were introduced to at a party or someone you meet at work, it’s a sign of respect and of listening to be able to remember their name. It’s certainly not easy and lots of people have a hard time with remembering names, so here are a few strategies for you to try out next time you meet somebody so you don’t end up embarrassing yourself.