The 21st-Century Traveler

Telephones

To call London: If you're calling London from the United States:

1. Dial the international access code, 011.

2. Dial the country code, 44.

3. Dial the city code, 20, and then the number. (London's official city code is 020, but you will dial 20 because you always have to omit the zero from the area code when calling London from outside England.) So the whole number you'd dial would be 011-44-20-0000-0000.

To make international calls: To make international calls from London, first dial 00 and then the country code (U.S. or Canada, 1; Ireland, 353; Australia, 61; New Zealand, 64). Next, dial the area code and number. For example, if you wanted to call the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., you would dial 00-1-202-588-7800.

Or call through one of the following long-distance access codes: AT&T USA Direct (tel. 0800/890-011), Canada Direct (tel. 0800/890-016), Australia (tel. 0800/890-061), or New Zealand (tel. 0800/890-064). Common country codes are U.S. and Canada, 1; Australia, 61; New Zealand, 64; and South Africa, 27.

For directory assistance: Dial tel. 118212 for a full range of services; for the rest of Britain, dial tel. 118118.

For operator assistance: If you need operator assistance in making a call, dial tel. 100.

Toll-free numbers: Numbers beginning with 0800 within London are toll-free, but calling a 1-800 number in the U.S. from England is not toll-free. In fact, it costs the same as an overseas call.

To call within London: Dial the local seven- or eight-digit number.

To call within Britain (outside London): Phone numbers outside the major cities consist of an exchange code plus telephone number. To dial the number, you need to dial the exchange code first. Information sheets on call-box walls give the codes in most instances. If your code isn't there, call the operator by dialing tel. 100.

There are three types of public pay phones: those taking only coins, those accepting only phone cards (called Cardphones), and those taking both phone cards and credit cards. At coin-operated phones, insert your coins before dialing. The minimum charge is 40p (75¢).

Cellphones

The three letters that define much of the world's wireless capabilities are GSM (Global System for Mobiles), a big, seamless network that makes for easy cross-border cellphone use throughout Great Britain and the rest of Europe and dozens of other countries worldwide. In the U.S., T-Mobile, AT&T Wireless, and Cingular use this quasi-universal system; in Canada, Microcell and some Rogers customers are GSM, and all Europeans and most Australians use GSM.

If your cellphone is on a GSM system, and you have a world-capable multiband phone such as many Sony Ericsson, Motorola, or Samsung models, you can make and receive calls across civilized areas around much of the globe. Just call your wireless operator and ask for "international roaming" to be activated on your account. Unfortunately, per-minute charges can be high, usually $1 to $1.50 in Britain.

That's why it's important to buy an "unlocked" world phone from the get-go. Many cellphone operators sell "locked" phones that restrict you from using any other removable computer memory phone chip (called a SIM card) cards than the ones they supply. Having an unlocked phone allows you to install a cheap, prepaid SIM card (found at a local retailer) in your destination country. (Show your phone to the salesperson; not all phones work on all networks.) You'll get a local phone number and much, much lower calling rates. Unlocking an already locked phone can be complicated, but it can be done; just call your cellular operator and say you'll be going abroad for several months and want to use the phone with a local provider.

For many, renting a phone is a good idea. While you can rent a phone from any number of overseas sites, including kiosks at airports and at car-rental agencies, we suggest renting the phone before you leave home. That way you can give loved ones and business associates your new number, make sure the phone works, and take the phone wherever you go -- especially helpful for overseas trips through several countries, where local phone-rental agencies often bill in local currency and may not let you take the phone to another country.

Phone rental isn't cheap. You'll usually pay $40 to $50 per week, plus airtime fees of at least a dollar a minute. If you're traveling to London, though, local rental companies often offer free incoming calls within their home country, which can save you big bucks. The bottom line: Shop around.

Two good wireless rental companies are InTouch USA (tel. 800/872-7626; www.intouchglobal.com) and Roadpost (tel. 888/290-1616 or 905/272-5665; www.roadpost.com). Give them your itinerary, and they'll tell you what wireless products you need. InTouch will also, for free, advise you on whether your existing phone will work overseas.

If you have not arranged to rent a cellphone before you depart, your best deal in London is through Rent-A-Mobile (tel. 01704/544-015; www.rent-a-mobile.co.uk), which, among other locations, will deliver your phone to you at Heathrow Airport Terminal 2, Gatwick South Terminal, or your hotel in London. If you're renting a car, perhaps to tour England after a visit to London, you can also arrange cellphone rental through your car-rental company. The phone rentals from Auto Europe (tel. 888/223-5555 in the U.S., or 0800/358-1229 in Britain; www.autoeurope.com) are especially recommended.

For trips of more than a few weeks spent in one country, buying a phone becomes economically attractive, as many nations have cheap, no-questions-asked prepaid phone systems. Stop by a local cellphone shop and get the cheapest package; you'll probably pay less than $100 for a phone and a starter calling card. Local calls may be as low as 10¢ per minute, and in many countries incoming calls are free.

Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP)

If you have Web access while traveling, you might consider a broadband-based telephone service (in technical terms, Voice-over-Internet Protocol, or VoIP) such as Skype (www.skype.com) or Vonage (www.vonage.com), which allows you to make free international calls if you use its services from your laptop or in a cybercafe. The people you're calling must also use the service for it to work; check the sites for details.

Internet/E-mail

Without Your Own Computer -- There are cybercafes throughout the heart of commercial London, with fees averaging about £2 ($3.80) per hour. For an Internet Exchange, there are some 22 locations at libraries all over London -- call tel. 020/8742-4000 for the location nearest you. You can also use www.cybercaptive.com and www.cybercafe.com to find cybercafes in London.

Aside from formal cybercafes, most youth hostels nowadays have at least one computer on which you can access the Internet. And most public libraries across the world offer Internet access free or for a small charge. Avoid hotel business centers, unless you're willing to pay exorbitant rates.

Most major airports have Internet kiosks that provide basic Web access for a per-minute fee that's usually higher than cybercafe prices. Check out copy shops like Kinko's (FedEx Kinko's), which offers computer stations with fully loaded software (as well as Wi-Fi).

To retrieve your e-mail, ask your Internet service provider (ISP) if it has a Web-based interface tied to your existing e-mail account. If your ISP doesn't have such an interface, you can use the free mail2web service (www.mail2web.com) to view (but not reply to) your home e-mail. For more flexibility, you may want to open a free Web-based e-mail account with Yahoo! Mail (http://mail.yahoo.com). (Microsoft's Hotmail is another popular option, but Hotmail has severe spam problems.) Your home ISP may be able to forward your e-mail to the Web-based account automatically.

If you need to access files on your office computer, look into a service called GoToMyPC (www.gotomypc.com). The service provides a Web-based interface for you to access and manipulate a distant PC from anywhere -- even a cybercafe -- provided your "target" PC is on and has an always-on connection to the Internet (such as with high-speed cable). The service offers top-quality security, but if you're worried about hackers, use your own laptop rather than a cybercafe to access the GoToMyPC system.

With Your Own Computer -- More and more hotels, resorts, airports, cafes, and retailers are going Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity), becoming "hotspots" that offer free high-speed Wi-Fi access or charge a small fee for usage. Most laptops sold today have built-in wireless capability. To find public Wi-Fi hotspots at your destination, go to www.jiwire.com; its Hotspot Finder holds the world's largest directory of public wireless hotspots.

For dial-up access, most business-class hotels throughout the world offer dataports for laptop modems, and a few thousand hotels in Europe now offer free high-speed Internet access.

Wherever you go, bring a connection kit of the right power and phone adapters, a spare phone cord, and a spare Ethernet network cable -- or find out whether your hotel supplies them to guests. British current is 240 volts, AC, so you'll need a converter or transformer for U.S.-made electrical appliances, as well as an adapter that allows the plug to match British outlets. Some (but not all) hotels supply them for guests. If you've forgotten one, you can buy a transformer/adapter at most branches of Boots the Chemist.