In general, keeping in touch is easy. The exception would be in rural areas where you may find it slightly frustrating getting to the nearest public phone - which may be many miles away.
US
telephones
are run by a large number of local companies, many of which were spun off from the previous Bell System monopoly - the successor to which is the nationwide AT&T network.
Public telephones
usually work, and in cities at any rate can be found everywhere - on street corners, in train and bus stations, hotel lobbies, bars and restaurants. They take 25¢, 10¢ and 5¢ coins. The cost of a
local call
from a public phone is usually 25¢ - when necessary, a voice comes on the line telling you to pay more.
Some numbers covered by the same area code are considered so far apart that calls between them count as
non-local
(zone calls). These cost much more and sometimes require you to dial 1 before the seven-digit number. Pricier still are
long-distance calls
(to a different area code, again with the 1 in front), for which you'll need plenty of change. Non-local calls and long-distance calls are much less expensive if made between 6pm and 8am - the cheapest rates are 11pm-8am - and calls from
private phones
are always much cheaper than those from public phones. Detailed rates are listed at the front of the
telephone directory
(the
White Pages
, a copious source of information on many matters).
Making telephone calls from
hotel rooms
is usually more expensive than from a pay phone, though some budget hotels offer free local calls from rooms - ask when you check in. An increasing number of phones accept
credit cards
, while anyone who holds a credit card issued by an American bank can obtain an
AT&T calling card
(information at 1-800/225-5288).
International calls
International calls
can be dialed direct from private or (more expensively) public phones. Most expensive of all is dialing direct from your hotel room, which often gets billed at the highest rate and then has a surcharge of up to forty percent...
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Toll-free numbers and area codes
Many government agencies, car rental firms, hotels and so on have
toll-free numbers
, which usually have the prefix 1-800 (or increasingly, 1-888 or 1-877). From within the US, you can dial any number that starts with those digits free of...
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Mail
Post offices are usually open Monday to Friday from 9am until 5pm, and Saturday from 9am to noon, and there are blue
mail boxes
on many street corners. At time of publication,
mail within the US
cost 34¢ for a letter weighing up to...
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Mobile phones
If you want to use your mobile in the USA, ask your phone provider if it will work abroad and what the call charges are. Unless you have a tri-band phone, it is unlikely that a mobile bought for use outside the US will work inside the US and vice versa....
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Email
One way to keep in touch while traveling is to sign up for a free internet email address that can be accessed from anywhere. YahooMail or Hotmail, for example, are accessible through
and
. Once you've set up an account, use one of...
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Telegrams and faxes
To send a
telegram
(sometimes called a wire), go to a Western Union office (listed in the telephone directory). Credit card holders can dictate messages over the phone or send them via the internet at
.
International...
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Time zones
The continental US spreads over four different time zones, plus one each for Alaska and Hawaii. The
Eastern
zone is five hours behind Greenwich Mean Time, so 10am London time is 5am in New York City. The
Central
zone, starting...
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