Preferred low cost method of staying in touch

in order

WhatsApp (by a mile)

Facetime

Messenger (if I must)

Skype

Thank you, that’s what I’ve been hearing.
Any thoughts on your phone number being out there- it sounded a little weird that it could be seen widely on FB.

depends on what the person you want to stay in touch with has. No point in WhatsApp if the other party doesn't use it. Sometimes, the point of going away is not to stay in touch 😎

What's App is encrypted messenging by text, phone (Voice Over Internet Phoning), or video call. You can use it wherever there is wifi, so often free. Yes, both need to have it set up. These days many small businesses use it for communication as well as the general public.
It is easier if you have a cell phone but you can use it on a tablet, and it means you can communicate with both Android and iPhone users

It really depends on what you need to do.

If you and the person you're contacting both have WhatsApp, then it's perfect for texting, but of course you'll need an Internet connection. I don't think you can use WhatsApp to contact someone who doesn't also have it, but I've never used it, so could be wrong.

If you want to be able to text, email, use the web, but don't need to make calls back to the US, look into installing an eSIM from a company like Airalo (in the iPhone App Store); it's very inexpensive and works great.

If you're on T-Mobile, they charge $.25/minute for intl. calls; if on Verizon or AT&T, they have an intl. plan that charges $10/day for any cell usage (phone, data, texting), up to a max of $100.

Thanks very much everyone!

Ramblin on makes a good point. Who do you need to stay in touch with? Work? A family member in ill health? Casual chats with family and friends? Do you need to be within immediate reach 24/7 or will using your device a couple times a day be sufficient?. If you need to be instantly reachable, then a phone with local sim card with plenty of data or an excellent international phone plan would be needed. Otherwise, free wifi is readily available in most urban areas (hotels, cafes, even some trains and metros), so your usual messaging app may be all you need to stay in contact with people back home. We usually do our messaging early morning or in the evenings at our hotel, using a tablet and the hotel wifi.

We don't spend a lot of time of staying in touch with anyone so text messages are more than adequate. And facetime has always work of us if we need a visual contact.

I have T-Mobile so it’s free international texts. At the hotel I use the wifi connection to use video calling - FaceTime for free.

Some apartment or B&B’s like to use WhatsApp to text each other for check-in information.

Regular text message
FB Messenger
FaceTime

We generally don’t communicate with those back home unless it is essential. A text saying we arrived along with our rental car information is sufficient. We will send out an occasional text along our route so if there is an emergency they have an idea where we’re at.

We use WhatsApp very easy and convenient.
One of my best friends is from Argentina and WhatsApp is the normal way to text and videochat there, she was very surprised we did not use it daily.

and you can find access to wifi at hotels and other places as well.

Facebook messenger is my choice when I go away as my husband also has an iPhone.

After looking back at my journals from trips over 18 years, I realized texting from my phone when I have WiFi is really the only thing I need for communicating with friends and family. And a bit of advice for travelers: get out there and enjoy your adventure, don't waste precious minutes/hours with a lot of "screen time".

WhatsApp for those contacts that have it.
Texting via TMobile,with free data.
Old fashioned email for those not on WhatsApp . Wifi if in hotel or data if not but we save pis for wifi to preserve higher speed allotment.

If you don't want other people you want to stay in touch with need to install or sign up for some other app. Google Voice is great for calling US phone numbers for free (even landlines) with the Google Voice app. Gives you a new US phone number (free). So the other people don't have to change/do anything. Give them your new Google number. They can text you or call you on it. (Incoming calls probably won't work outside the US without working phone service e.g. a SIM card of some sort. I have a Dutch Vodafone SIM I use when I got to Europe, and I am able to get incoming Google calls in the Google Voice app when I have that installed). Google Voice gives you voicemail and of course texting so, if you don't need incoming calls it will be fine - just call them back if they text you or leave a message.

But if the people you want to keep in touch with already use WhatsApp, Facetime, etc. just go with that. I have relatives who have flip phones so those aren't options for me to contact them when I travel.

My husband is technophobic, uses landline, has a flip phone that he doesn’t answer, no text, won’t email. Google Voice works great to call him since I can call him using hotel wifi without incurring Verizon’s $10/day.

My son and I went to Germany together last summer and we started using what's app to communicate when we were doing our own things on that trip. We like it so much we still use it with each other. My husband doesn't use a cell phone and had just started using Facebook marketplace to sell some music equipment, so we sent face book messages to each other while I was gone. It was hilarious because he had never texted before. He said it felt like passing notes in high school (we're old!). I still look back at those messages and laugh at the autocorrects.

Some apartment or B&B’s like to use WhatsApp to text each other for
check-in information.

We experienced this in Sorrento in April. The owner of the B&B asked us to contact him with an approximate arrival time so he could have someone there to meet us.

My first experience with WhatsApp was in 2018 when I was in England. My teenage daughter was at home with the dog and called to say something was wrong. I was able to do live video chats with the vet while I was away.

Just to correct a statement from OP, if you use Messenger, no one at all has your phone number. It is not floating out there on Facebook unless you have put it there. You can only use Messenger to make audio or video calls with people you are Facebook friends with. This is my first choice method since all my family and close friends also use Messenger and we are “friends”.

Second choice is WhatsApp, mostly for people not in the U.S.

Third choice is Skype for absolutely necessary phone calls I need to make to businesses upon rare occasion.

FaceTime but that only works iPhone to iPhone.

I just carry a small tablet to get on the internet. I just Email for free.

Even at home, I seldom even make a telephone call. When I retired, I retired from talking on the phone.

My wife has the phone, and she gets T Mobile's international service for one month.