Yeyeaaaaaaaaaah! A huge thank you to TEP Wireless for joining Yak to Yak Champs on our trip across the world! What is TEP Wireless? Pull up a seat children, I have a story to tell you.
In this crazy modern world of ours, one of the most important things to consider when you’re traveling to another country is how you are getting cell service, specifically data. Whether it’s for GPS, checking email or uploading a funny picture to Facebook to show all your friends and family how much fun you’re having somewhere else – you need data. Most people just call their cell company and get a temporary international plan. The problem is international plans are VERY expensive compared to what you get in return. I was in Canada for 2 days earlier this year, and when I called AT&T the cheapest roaming plan you can get was $40 (up from 30) which will get you 200MB of data, which is the cell phone equivalent of buying a box of crackers and finding out they are all broken. Sure you still have crackers, but unless you’re using them as some sort of crumble on a tasty food item (you’re not) what do you do with a bunch of broken crackers? Not much is the answer. 200MB of data can be eaten up in a few hours of using your GPS, streaming Spotify, and checking facebook. After that the data penalty charges will turn into a new mortgage. You could buy a SIM card for the country you’re in, but you’re gonna have to worry about reloading it assuming you can easily access your SIM card to swap out in your phone. Ain’t nobody got time for that. So what do you do?
Pocket wi-fi. For $7-10 USD (depending on specials they run) a day, TEP will rent you a little device that fits into your pocket or purse that connects you to existing cell towers in the country you’re in. With your phone, tablet or laptop, you connect to the wi-fi device and BOOM you’re on the internet anywhere a local cell phone would get service. I’ve used this service in Japan for 9 days, Austria/Germany for 10, and most recently the UK for 4. I gotta say, it was a lifesaver in Japan and UK. Navigating a complex city (Tokyo especially) and being able to run google maps on my phone all day is worth every penny. They mail it to you, and when you’re finished you get home and mail it back, easy peazy.
Our route takes us through 19 countries and TEP gets us internet access in 16 of them. Turkmenistan is a dictatorship so that is no surprise. Mongolia is basically a giant field so there are no cell towers. Georgia is just a weird ex Soviet country with very little infrastructure. Everywhere else – including freaking Tajikistan! – we’ll be able to update our friends/family, blog from the road, upload pics/video etc… They’re sending us a device and giving us 30 days of data – for FREE! So a huuuuuuge thank you to TEP Wireless!! There’s a reason why I contacted them for a sponsorship. The service has always been great and well worth the money.
For our American friends and family – and any future rallier – check them out if you’re traveling abroad.
-Chris
