By: Clarissa Casas
Studying and traveling abroad is a once in a lifetime opportunity, that should not be missed. During your time abroad, it can be easy to forget to stay in contact with your family and friends back home. Luckily, there are a variety of [free] apps to help you stay in contact with your friends and family and share your impeccable adventures.
Whatsapp is an awesome app, that allows you to send text messages, make phone calls, and video calls using data or wifi. You can download the app on your phone and your computer, and your friends and family will be able to do the same to keep in communication with you without racking up your phone bill.
Facetime
If you, your friends, or family have an iPhone, this may be the easiest way to stay in touch with friends and family back home. Facetime audio can be utilized as well so that you’re basically making a phone call using wifi/data with no risk of using minutes.
Skype
Skype is another way to make phone/video calls. You can download Skype on your computer and phone.
Social Media (Instagram/Facebook/Snapchat)
Social media is such an awesome way to share your travel adventures! Whether it be Instagram, Facebook, or Snapchat, everyone will love viewing your pictures and videos. Social media makes it easy for friends and family to see your life abroad on a daily basis. It has also become more and more popular to create separate travel social media pages, so you can upload an abundance of photos and videos without flooding everyone else’s feed. You can create a page and share it with everyone who wants to see your travels!
Marco Polo
Marco Polo is a fairly new app that allows you to take videos of yourself and show what you are doing. It is very similar to snapchat, but the videos do not expire. This app is a great way to share your experience at any time of the day.
iCloud Photo Sharing
Sharing pictures and videos via iCloud is such an awesome way to share your adventures abroad. If you have an iPhone, you can easily invite other iPhone users to view your photos via iCloud photo sharing. Friends and family can comment on pictures as well. You can upload pictures and videos as frequently as you want, and it will send notifications to your friends and family each time you upload new content.
Regardless of which way you choose to stay in contact with your family and friends, just make sure you keep them in the loop. Share your beautiful photos, and let them know you are having the time of your life. Video chat them while you’re in the airport on your way to Barcelona. Create a Marco Polo video of your travels in Italy. The options are endless and free!
