How to Receive Mobile Calls when Traveling Overseas

Get your mobile calls overseas
Get your mobile calls overseas
Get your mobile calls overseas

How to Receive Mobile Calls when Traveling Overseas this Summer

Summer has arrived and the world awaits! Unfortunately, if you’re traveling from the U.S. to an international destination this summer, your trusty cell phone won’t necessarily work unless you use some sort of international or toll free call divert. While there’s something to be said for being completely disconnected while on vacation, being able to receive emergency calls is important. If you’re traveling on business, being disconnected from the office is not an option.

Most of us take our cell phones for granted and expect them to work no matter where we are. Once we cross international lines, however, nothing is guaranteed. Even if your phone works, international roaming charges could be an unexpected – and costly – surprise. Fortunately, a low-cost solution exists that allows you to receive your mobile phone calls in countries around the world: international call forwarding.

You’re likely familiar with domestic call forwarding, right? For example, depending on your cellular service provider’s calling features, to set your iPhone to ring to your home number, you simply go to Settings > Phone > Call Forwarding and enter your home phone number. Whenever someone dials your iPhone number, the call rings to your home phone.

International call forwarding works in a similar manner. If you’re thinking you can simply change your mobile phone’s settings to ring to an international number as illustrated in the example above, think again. This technique only works domestically. You will need an international call forwarding service to accomplish this task. Don’t worry, it’s not hard but it does require some planning.

  • First, make sure your mobile phone has a call forwarding feature (not all do). If you can call forward calls from your mobile to your home number, then your phone is properly equipped. If it is not equipped with call forwarding, you may be able to change that via your online account dashboard or with a quick call to your provider.
  • Next, you will need to order a domestic call forwarding number from a service provider. If you’re in the United States, for example, you’ll need a U.S. call forwarding number. This is the number that you will forward your mobile calls to. This step is crucial because in most cases you can’t forward mobile calls to an international phone number directly. Even if you could, the costs would be prohibitive.
  • Once you have your domestic call forwarding virtual number, you will need to configure it so that it forwards to the ring-to number in the country you will be visiting. This number could be your hotel, a disposable cell phone you buy in that country, your local business office in that country and so on.
  • At the same time, you will need to configure your cell phone to ring to your new domestic virtual phone number. Once all configurations have been made, anytime someone dials your U.S. cell phone number, the call will be routed first to your new virtual number and then to your ring-to number overseas.

The same method will work regardless of where your home country is.  Simply get a virtual number in your country.  Call forward your mobile phone to ring to the mobile or hotel, etc, at your travel destination.

This process allows your local contacts to reach you overseas without requiring them to do anything different. You will incur costs for the call forwarding, making it important to choose a low-cost international call forwarding service. Because quality is equally important, you’ll also want to choose a provider that uses traditional telephone networks rather than Internet-based routing. Another useful feature to look for is time of day routing, especially if time differences are significant.

Don’t let your overseas travel plans keep you disconnected. Explore your international call forwarding options today!

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