I don't know what I would do without a satellite phone rental when I travel to extremely remote locations, both in my personal travels and in my obsession for finding new, pristine sights to take pictures of. Don't get me wrong- I do this for a living, but it's not like I work for National Geographic or anything. Rather, I'm a travel correspondent for my local arts and entertainment paper. Luckily I don't live in Mayberry, I live in St. Louis, so we have a large circulation, a great proportion of which are regular readers and responders to my travel column. I like for all of my articles--which are really a series of pictures with captions that tell a story--to contain shots of places that most people have never seen before, and didn't even know existed. I guess you can say I specialize in introducing people to new places from the far reaches of the planet. Not too shabby of a job if I do say so myself. However, I can certainly say that if not for my satellite phone rental plan, I would probably be sleeping with the fishes and floating down the Amazon.
When I took my first trip abroad to China back in '95, I started off with an international cell phone rental so that my mother could get in touch with me and ease her worried mind. She insisted that she must be able to contact me, even though at first we weren't exactly sure how to go about that because international cell phones were so new at the time. Heck, cell phones were even new. I was really glad that I took the initiative and secured that plan, because mama was a bundle of nerves for the six weeks I spent in the Orient. After China, I began traveling every chance I got. I was a writer and had taken a few photography classes, so I started putting together my own photo documentaries and submitting them to various publications around the country. After several months, I was offered the job in St. Louis, and the rest is history.
After about a year of working with the paper, I was sent out on my first major assignment. I was headed up to Alberta, Canada to do a piece on the oil boom up there, and how it was affecting the economy and the environment. I knew that an international cell phone rental wasn't going to cut it...for some portions of the article, I needed to go to some pretty desolate places to get the pictures and information I would need. That's when I first tried a satellite phone for the first time, and I've been using them in such places ever since. Even though I knew exactly how the technology worked (simply by having a direct line of vision to the sky), I have to say that it was still pretty strange to be standing in the Canadian tundra explaining to my boyfriend how to make gumbo. I'm pretty sure that was the first time a phone had rung there, ever, in recorded history.
The moral of the story is that a satellite phone rental would be advisable for any remote traveler. Being able to check in with your family and friends is a wonderful thing, as is being able to keep in touch for work purposes. Luckily, I only had to used my phone for trivial little conversations like how to make gumbo, and not for any real emergencies. But considering some of the places I've ended up and the situations I've gotten myself into, it's always good to be prepared. Apart from being the one connection I have with my loved ones, my phone is certainly an integral part of my first aid kit.
