I learned this lesson the hard way.
Three weeks into a trip through Colombia (Medellín, the coffee region, Cartagena), I got my phone bill. My carrier had been happily charging me $2.99 per minute for every call back to the US. I’d called my mom twice. My accountant once. A ten-minute catch-up here, a quick update there. Nothing crazy.
The bill said otherwise.
That was the moment I decided to actually figure out international calling instead of just winging it every trip. And if you’re headed to Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, or anywhere else in Latin America, this post is going to save you a real amount of money, and a lot of frustration.
Why Your Regular Phone Plan Is Quietly Robbing You
Let’s be real about how carrier international plans work. Most of them fall into one of two categories:
The first is the “international day pass,” usually somewhere between $10-$15 per day your phone is active abroad. Sounds reasonable until you realize you’re there for three weeks and suddenly you’ve paid an extra $200 just to use the phone you already own.
The second is the default roaming rate, which is what kicks in when you don’t add anything. This is where the $2.99/minute situation lives. Voice calls are by far the most expensive thing on roaming, way worse than data. Carriers know most people aren’t paying attention, and they price accordingly.
Neither option is good if you’re calling home regularly. And if you’re an expat, a digital nomad, or someone who travels for months at a stretch? You need a proper solution. (There are over 18 million Americans now living or working abroad, and most of them are still overpaying on calls.)
The Actually Good Options (And Which One I Use Now)
Once I started researching, I found a few real alternatives worth knowing about.
Local SIMs work well for data, but they’re hit or miss for calling back to the US or UK. You end up with a Colombian number that nobody back home recognizes, and calling internationally from a local SIM often still costs money. It solves one problem and creates another.
WhatsApp and FaceTime are fine when both people are on wifi and nobody’s driving or doing anything else. But you can’t always count on that. Not everyone picks up WhatsApp calls from an unknown number. And if you need to call a business, a doctor’s office, an actual phone line, these don’t work.
VoIP calling apps are where it gets interesting. This is what I switched to, and it’s genuinely changed how I handle international travel.
After a lot trial and errors, the one I’ve settled on is Sayfone. It’s a VoIP app that lets you make international calls at rates that are honestly shocking compared to carrier pricing. We’re talking fractions of a cent per minute for calls to the US, Mexico, Colombia. The corridors that actually matter if you travel in this part of the world.
You top up with credit, make calls through the app, and that’s it. No subscription, no monthly fee eating your wallet, no surprise bill when you get home. You use what you use.
What the Numbers Actually Look Like
Because this stuff is always more real when you see the math laid out.
Say you’re in Mexico for a month and you call the US maybe 20 minutes a day. That’s around 600 minutes over the trip.
On a standard carrier day pass: $10-15/day × 30 days = $300-$450. And that’s if you’re being “smart” about it.
On default roaming: At $2/min (being generous), that’s $1,200. I’ve seen people hit this.
On Sayfone: US calling rates are extremely low, a fraction of what you’d pay otherwise. For 600 minutes, you might spend $5-$15 total. Not a typo.
The Colombia corridor is similar. And if you’re heading to Costa Rice, same story. Calling from a US number used to feel like a luxury. Now it’s just very cheap.
The Setup Takes About Five Minutes
This is something I want to be honest about because some VoIP apps are a pain to configure. Sayfone isn’t.
You download it, create an account, add some credit, and start calling. There’s no complicated port process, no hardware, no SIP credentials to configure unless you want them. It works on your regular smartphone.
When you’re traveling, you just need wifi or a data connection, which you have anyway, because you’ve got a local SIM for data, right? Run the two in parallel. Local SIM for data and texts, Sayfone for any real calls you need to make. It’s a clean setup.
A Few Practical Tips From Someone Who’s Figured This Out the Hard Way
Buy your credit before you leave. Not that it’s hard to do abroad, but removing friction before you travel is always worth it.
Keep it on wifi when you can. Calling over wifi (especially hotel wifi or your Airbnb) is free on your end for the data. If you’re on a local SIM data plan, calls still cost very little, but wifi is always preferred.
Don’t delete your home country’s number. You want incoming calls still landing somewhere, especially for 2FA and verification codes. Most people keep their home SIM in a second slot or on a cheap eSIM plan just for this.
Test it before you need it. Call someone back home the day before a trip, not the first day you’re abroad trying to sort out a reservation. You want to know it works when you don’t need it.
Let’s recap
Latin America is one of the most incredible parts of the world to travel through. The food in Oaxaca, the coffee farms in Salento, the colonial architecture in Cartagena. None of it should be overshadowed by dread every time you have to pick up the phone.
The technology to call home cheaply has existed for years. Most people just don’t know which app to trust or they default to whatever their carrier offers because it’s the path of least resistance. Sayfone fixed this for me. It’s what I use now on every trip, and it’s what I recommend when someone asks me how I’m not spending a fortune on international calls.
Set it up once. Don’t think about it again. Spend the money on the food and experiences instead. Next week, I’ll curate my favorite places. Ciao!
Last Updated on March 26, 2026
