But lately I’ve heard several people discouraging travelers from tweeting, at least about their travels. While it’s more of an issue for folks on vacation, the concern is that if a huge number of people know where you are and where you’re going, something bad could happen. The most common concern seems to be if someone was to rob your house after you tweeted that you were on vacation in another country.

Honestly, I’m just not that concerned. At the very least, I feel like the benefits far outweigh those concerns — after all, how many people have tweeted that they’re in trouble while traveling? We’ve heard about natural disasters, arrests and all sorts of things where someone was able to get out a tweet but might not have managed much more communication beyond that.

Furthermore, I take some precautions when I travel, in terms of my home. Most of the time there is someone else here — while I don’t mention the fact very often on Twitter, I don’t live alone — and I do a little more than just lock the door if I’m planning to be gone for a while. I would hope that most travelers are taking similar precautions in terms of whatever home base they rely on.

I think the worry, in this case, is unjustified. As long as you take reasonable precautions, like not tweeting that you’re leaving such-and-such address and you won’t be back for six months, I think you’re going to be just fine.

Why Skype?

Off the top of my head, I can name half a dozen different tools for making online calls, but I’m probably the only one (I happen to write about the topic for one of my clients). Skype has become the communication tool of choice for digital nomads, students abroad and even folks with long distance relationships. It’s far surpassed its competition.

One of the biggest reasons, I think, is because it reached critical mass far before any of its competitors. One of the people I wanted to talk when I was living in Ireland already had Skype, so signed up for that, rather than any other option. I also got my family to sign up for it so I didn’t have to pay to call those people that I would need to call the most. It’s a snowball effect.

It doesn’t hurt that Skype is incredibly easy to use — if you’ve ever used any instant messenger client, you’re going to figure it out almost immediately. And the options to make calls outside of Skype (SkypeOut) and receive phone calls (SkypeIn) make it a viable option if you’re running a business from your laptop.

Sticking With Skype

Skype’s future is bright: some recent business decisions have opened up opportunities for new development. I think we’re going to see Skype become even more common, making it even easier for all of us to communicate without paying an arm and a leg for international minutes. Skype is already available on most smartphones, after all.

Most digital nomads have already minimized the situations where actually mailing a letter is necessary, but they do occasionally crop up. Even if you’re just trying to figure out a way to communicate with an elderly relative while you’re off in some exotic country, using Snailmailr can be a simple solution, especially paired with Earth Class Mail.

I rely heavily on Skype for my work. Interviews, editorial meetings, leaving messages — I’ve used Skype for all of it. I really got used to Skype when I was living in Dublin. I was able to get both of my parents comfortable with it before I left and could easily chat with them without running up their phone bills.

But Skype has become a far more important part of my work than just that. Right now, I’m working on projects that involve people in twenty different states and a dozen different countries. The phone bill I could run up calling all of those folks truly scares me!

Skype released a new version this week — Skype 2.8 beta. It’s got all the bells and whistles of Skype Classic, like video conferencing and the ability to make calls outside of the Skype system. But it’s got some new features that are really worth while. The biggest one is screen sharing: the ability to show clients exactly what you’re doing on your screen without having to load up another conferencing program.

The new version of Skype makes it easy to do demos, share presentations or even instruct new users on how to use software. There are other new features as well, but that’s the biggie (for a full review, check out Disruptive Telephony’s write up). Currently 2.8 is only available for Mac, but I expect there will be a version for Windows soon enough.