We highly recommend having a fully functioning phone while abroad. Relying solely on WiFi is typically not sufficient. Check with you phone service provider about international plans, or use a local SIM card. To use a local SIM card, your phone must be unlocked. If your phone is paid off, you can ask your phone service provider for the unlock code. Make sure you do this before you go abroad.

Here are some comments from the previous students regarding the phone:

• Vodafone- I used a 60 minutes a month plan with 3.5 GB of data and it worked very well for me. USE WIFI WHENEVER POSSIBLE. Download whatsapp, that's how I kept in contact with my family.
• Purchase a plan from one of the big phone companies there like Vodafone or Yoigo. I bought a sim card that gave me data and 100 minutes.
• I used Sprint which had the international plan under my current plan. I used WhatsApp for communication.
• I switched to Tmobile and got a sim card for 3 months.