Not the same as the phone

Having been traveling for the better portion of 10 months, I've had my fair share of attempts at keeping up normal conversation with friends and family back home. While I currently am traveling to broaden my horizons, see new things, meet new people and essentially escape the U.S., my friends and family back home miss me and I miss them. With that being the case, trying to communicate has been difficult.

It is no secret that technology is advancing at a blistering fast pace. From this, ways to communicate with one another have blossomed. From iMessage to Instagram, and What’s App to Words with Friends, there are a plethora of ways to let people know you are still alive, and almost keep up a normal friendship. While this is great, one thing has become certain to me as of late; Skyping is not the same has a phone call.

With the ability to not only phone call, but also to video call, Skype has become the preferred method of communication for those who are far away from the ones they love. With free Skype to Skype services and cheap rates on long distance calls, the incredible technology has literally changed the face of communication while abroad. So what is my beef? While Skyping with my best friend back home, and then with my parents, I realized that too much weight is put on a single Skype.

Without the ability to bust out my cell phone and text or call friends and family whenever I want, spontaneity is lost. I have to remember every single little thing that happened, and how I amped I was at that point to tell them when I get the chance a week later. Sure, sure, I know this is a minuscule detail, but with time differences and needing to schedule times to Skype so far in advance, it starts to take some of the beauty of communication out of the call. Skyping, although fantastic, still hasn't brought my world back home to my present life.

Are there any new technologies that have worked out some of the kinds of Skype? What do you use to communicate while traveling? Maybe we should just revert back to letter writing so we can still elicit the exact emotion we felt at the time of the experience?

Photo courtesy of Skype