I wanted to make sure that I kept in constant contact with my parents and boyfriend while I was away so they didn't worry too much and to keep myself sane. However, my provider's international roaming costs were too much for me to handle! But I still wanted to have a contact with home!
Thankfully, I recently purchased an iPhone. And thankfully, we were never out of wifi's reach!
I figured email would get boring and the time delay between messages would be lengthly and annoying. So I turned to Facetime!
If you are unfamiliar, Facetime is Apple's video chatting service that can be used between any combination of Mac laptops and desktops, iPods, iPads and iPhones over any wifi network.
My boyfriend was on Warped Tour, a music festival, all last summer so we got really used to talking via iChat and Facetime while he was on the go however this was my parents first experience.
I left my iPad2 at home with them and gave them a quick tutorial before I left. Facetime is quite possibly the easiest tech thing I have ever had to teach my parents! They picked it up right way!
The real fun started the first night I was in Mexico when I spent the first half of the conversation with my parents staring at their dining room ceiling. Apparently I forgot to tell them they have to frame themselves in the shot. Once I clarified this for them, they kept their faces as close to the camera as humanly possible, as seen above!
Facetime is an awesome substitute for normal phone calls while traveling. It is easy to teach, even to the toughest of audiences, and it is incredibly convenient. Not only do you get to bypass those nasty international roaming charges (since it's all through wifi) but you also get to alleviate some homesickness by getting to see and talk to your loved ones "face-to-face."
It also doesn't hurt that Facetime reminds me of one of my favorite 1991 classic Disney Channel Original Movie, Zenon Girl of the 21st Century. Everyone in this movie had a video conferencing "phone" they carried around.
**UPDATE** Fall 2012 Facetime is made available over a cellular signal.
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