KUWAIT: Many travelers are known for packing the whole house when preparing to go on holiday. For some holidaymakers, the biggest problem is packing all their summer clothes , while others wonder how to transport their pets. A new breed of travelers, however, are more concerned with how are they going to stay in touch with family and friends while on vacation. For them, communication is the main priority. Many of these travelers in Kuwait prefer to use their telecommunications provider's roaming service du
e to its 'hassle-free' nature, although others argue that it's easier to just buy a SIM card in the country they're holidaying in.

Sara Mourad, an employee in a local private sector firm, told the Kuwait Times, "I always face this problem when I plan to travel because I remember that for three calls I once paid almost KD 400 while I was out of town for 40 days. I have my own business and a lot of people call me and I also call a lot of people. I chose to use my roaming number for making local calls where I was on holiday.

She continued, "I think I learned a very good lesson from what happened to me. Now wherever I go when I get to the airport the first thing I do is to get a SIM card. I advise everyone who travels to get a rechargeable card from the place and to get a new SIM card in the country they are visiting," she said.

Another employee at a local firm, Hanan Bader, said that he can't give up using his own mobile while on holiday. He admitted, however, that he doesn't really think about call costs since the company he works for covers all those expenses.

I prefer to use my provider's roaming service, because at the end of the day I won't pay any bills; all the cost is passed on to my company. I travel on business trips and they have provided me with a cell-phone to communicate with them, because most of the time I make business calls.

Mahmoud Abdulaziz, a frequent traveler to Egypt, who is also studying there, explains that he prefers to switch on his roaming number in Egypt and use an Egyptian SIM card. "That means that I am using two mobiles at one time," he explained.

He explained further: "I use the roaming number only for receiving missed calls and messages from my family and friends from Kuwait, because when they are sending messages to me on the Egyptian number it's more expensive, so when I use the roaming number they can send to a local number from Kuwait so the messages are still charged at the price levels as local SMS messages. That's why I use the roaming number but nothing else.

Another worker with a local firm, Esaa Shaker, says that he prefers using a new SIM card, explaining, "Because I have faced this problem before, I decided to stop using the roaming number service. First, the bill is huge. Secondly, the roaming service is not good enough to use in any other country. So, I prefer to buy a new SIM card as soon as I get out of the country. - Kuwait Times