Using WhatsApp Abroad

purplepansyem

Hi, my husband and I are going to Saint Lucia for a week and we want to keep in touch with my daughter in England while we're away. I was advised to use WhatsApp but I don't know if I'll be charged for using it. Can I message and call my daughter and can she message and call me for free? Do I have to turn anything off? Any information would be greatly appreciated!

Carrot007

Whatsapp uses data, so free if you can find (free) wifi. Other that that whatever you pay for data.

(you pay for data both ways so it matters not qwho initiates).

no.1swimmum

We've just returned from 2 weeks in USA, and kept in touch with my parents and sons through whatsapp.

We turned off our Data and Data roaming so as not to get charges from our mobile provider and just connected to the free wifi either at the hotel or in coffee shops - we video called my parents from Starbucks in New York on the evening of the shooting on the Subway, as we had been out of reach of wifi all day and knew nothing about the incident until my phone connected to starbucks wifi and there were loads of messages from hoem - it worked really well and no charges at all.

Hope this helps

purplepansyem

This is fantastic! I couldn't believe how expensive it was to text and call using our mobile provider. Thanks for the info both of you

Murmansk

Be sure to be very careful about not letting your phone use mobile data while abroad, it could cost you A LOT of money if you get it wrong. 

eDicky

If both you and your daughter have WhatsApp installed, it can be used for free messages and calls when you're both connected to the internet. Using free WiFi for it will cost you nothing, as mentioned. Call quality will depend on how good the WiFi connection is, but the instant messaging uses very little bandwidth.