The World Is A Very Big Place

[serinde]

Or, "The country cousin seeks guidance". So, here we are, eventually to depart for Faraway Lands, and I realize that there are a lot of things that my previous travels have not prepared me for, not even going to London. Wherefore, these questions:

1. Phone. We have plain ole CDMA phones, which as I understand it don't work in the rest of the world. And which, as I understand it, I can't just buy a different SIM card to make work in Australia. What do I do?

2. Laptop. That is, to bring or not to bring. Previously I whinged about my original plan of using it as an amusement device for the long long [insert Dr. Cox "long" routine] long flight being a non-starter. OTOH, it strikes me that having Teh Intarwubs readily available to us while we decide what to do on a given day is a good notion. But: will it be readily available? Are Melbourne and Sydney veritable garden lands of free wireless? Or would I be lugging around a 13" MacBrick?

3. Is it really hard to switch to driving on the other side of the road?

Comments

[pir.livejournal.com]

1) Buy a cheap unlocked GSM phone that has the right frequencies for use in Aussieland. When you get there get a pre-pay SIM. The calls will be cheaper than trying to make your US phone work.

2) No idea about wireless accessability. In the UK I can use my pre-pay phone as a modem over bluetooth. Not cheap, but useful for occasional things (but in the US pre-pay phones won't let you use data - lame - so check this out first).

3) I found it was harder to switch back, initially, when you go to the other side first you're paying more attention. Sure you might make a couple of mistakes but usually when there are other vehicles around they give you hints about where you should be. When there are no other vehicles and no hints you are more likely to make a mistake... but there's no one around to hit.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

3: very true, I have only made side-of-road errors when there were no cues from other cars or strong road markings. It's useful to have the pilot-not-flying check the pilot-flying on this :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

1. Your phone is useless as soon as the plane takes off. Options for phone in Oz include:
(a) get an unlocked GSM triband phone off eBay or similar, and:
(i) get an "international travel SIM" from one of the companies who does those (maybe expensive)
(ii) get a SIM in Oz (seems to be possible)
(b) buy a prepaid phone and SIM in Oz (also seems possible)

2. I'd always take it but then I'm an internet addict. I hear there's plenty of net around in Australian cities. I would also expect to be able to leave it in my hotel room if I wanted to in Oz, so I wouldn't need to carry it everywhere.

3. Basically no, at least not for me. I may not be fully representative of the average person since my cultural heritage is "European Mongrel". Cars work mostly the same. It's worth reading up a bit on oddities of the local signage, etc, if you can. You may find your lane positioning is off since you'll be trying to put your body in the right place, but your body is displaced sideways in the car from the usual place. Just recheck it regularlyand you get used to it soon.
If you are renting a car with a manual transmission then it gets more interesting. Generally the gears are arranged the same arrangement (1 relative to 2, 2 relative to 3, etc) but obviously the gearstick is on the other side. Some cars have a funky way to select reverse, make sure you know it. Under stress you may well end up trying to change gear with the window handle/armrest/etc and not the gearstick, so try to stay out of stressful situations and anticipate gearchanges.

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

1) At the arrivals area at both Sydney and Melbourne airports there is a Vodafone desk where you can get a rental phone for approx $5 US a day plus the cost of calls. I did this when visiting in 2002 and it worked quite well for me. I think for a matter of days/weeks it's probably cheaper and easier than trying to get a handset and prepaid SIM and all that, but of course I wouldn't recommend it long-term.

2) Free wifi is not very available but if you check http://del.icio.us/Skud/wifi+australia I have bookmarked some pages that list free hotspots. You can't assume there will be any where you're staying, but you should be able to find some most days if you're in the city (i.e. downtown or nearby). If free wifi isn't available, hotspots typically cost $10 for the first hour, and don't have anything like full coverage.

3) No idea, sorry, but plenty of people seem to manage it. If you drive stick, you would be freaked out by trying to do so with your left hand, but I suspect the sensible thing would be to rent an automatic.

[lillilah]

2. I'm assuming that you are staying in hotels rather than hostels, so why not contact them and ask what kind of internet service they have? I personally prefer to drag my laptop with me, as then I can offload photos from my camera and futz with them, write up posts that I will upload when I have access, play games when I'm too tired to do anything else, or consult pre-downloaded info.

[dagnycat522.livejournal.com]

1) Rent a cellphone. When I did study abroad in Italy, that's what most people did and it seemed mostly hassle free. However, I would recommend google-ing around for cell phone rental places in whatever city you'll be in to see if you can find reviews, because some places just exist to scam tourists.

[(Anonymous)]

As others have mentioned you can rent phones in Oz for the duration of your trip or you can get a cheap GSM phone and get a sim in Oz. So I guess do the math and see which way is cheaper.

When I tried driving on the left I purposely started in a non-urban area (we drove from Adelaide to Melbourne and I drove more in the middle part. I found it a little less stressful to not be in a city. However, as others here have posted I had most trouble when there were no other cars around to give cues so when the country roads get lonely be sure to pay extra attention.

Also, I found that everything was peachy going straight but whenever I had to make a turn I had to think carefully about which side I was on. It helps to have the passenger remind you when you are turning (at least I found that helpful) we made a bit of a game out of it.

Often the rental cars are standard shift and *not* automatic. If you want automatic (which *is* easier when driving on a "different" side of the road) make sure to reserve one specifically with your rental agency.

Oh and in Melbourne: watch out for the "hook turns." When on a street where there are trams you make right turns from the left lane. Here's a wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook_turn

Kathryn

[nancaurelia.livejournal.com]

3: It is surprisingly easy to slightly sideswipe cars parked on the left side of the road (if the roads are narrow), since you're not used to having so much car to the left of you. For me, the different shape of the car was harder than driving on the left. As others mention, if you don't normally drive manual, you have several other new things to think about, in addition to being in unfamiliar locations, trying not to get lost. Driving in these circumstances requires extra focus. In Ireland with a group of 4, 3 of us had minor fender benders. The 4th never drove because car was manual. OK, we sucked. But I was worshiped for having insisted we pay extra for collision insurance on rental. (And for being the only woman, of course.)

[heliumbreath.livejournal.com]

It's not just driving on the left, there are quite a number of other differences, and you should get a "rules of the road" book and read it beforehand. Find out what a round white sign with a black stripe means, check the subtle differences to right-of-way rules, etc., and I'm not trying to explain it all here because I almost certainly don't know or have forgotten stuff or some of it will have changed in two decades.

When I was there in 1987, the main difference in the car was that you drive from the right, with the stick still in the middle but the pedals still in the same order. The main danger spot driving was when you made a turn and entered another roadway and had to consciously go for the left rather than the right. Having a front passenger yelling "Left Side!" can help. Just driving along and staying in a lane isn't difficult, though.

[crypticgirl.livejournal.com]

Net access in hotels can still be variable over here. You're probably not going to get in-room net access without paying a timed fee for usage. The fees vary, but I think the Holiday Inn I went to last year where they charged 55 cents a minute with a maximum daily charge of $29 was pretty typical. Free wireless is pretty variable in terms of availability. Many hotels have business centres where I think you can access ADSL, but I'm less certain about the rates you'd pay for that because we've always gone for the in-room option.

Be careful re. mobile phones: some carriers are better about coverage outside of the major cities than others; if you plan to take the scenic route between Melbourne and Sydney you might want to take that into consideration when choosing a rental phone over a cheap pre-paid.

By the way, it's really no trouble if you need local help chasing up details over the phone.

[blarglefiend.livejournal.com]

Phone-wise, cheap prepaid is available. The main mobile phone companies here are Telstra (http://www.telstra.com/), Optus (http://www.optus.com.au/), Vodafone (http://www.vodafone.com.au/), and 3 (http://www.three.com.au/). There are others who resell service on those networks, Virgin (http://www.virginmobile.com.au/) may be worth a look.

As crypticgirl points out coverage beyond the metro areas is spotty. Telstra is probably best for this, but the others will roam onto the Telstra GSM network where it's available anyway. Be careful about roaming costs.

Rental is your other option.

Wireless hotspots are rare enough to be worth forgetting about. Assume for Internet access you're using the hotel-provided service, or maybe roaming dialup from your current provider (probably expensive now you're not staff!) or even buy a cheap dialup account from someone like Internode (http://www.internode.on.net/). Most hotels provide something, but they'll often charge up to AU$30/day for it.

Regardless, your feeling that it could be useful to be able to look stuff up once you're hear is spot-on, so bring the laptop, just don't count on using it every day.