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Renting an Apartment in Uruguay

July 12, 2009 by Brian

Renting an apartment in Uruguay is a very different process than our experiences in the States. Oftentimes in the US, you deal directly with the owner. However, in Uruguay, typically both the owner and the renter have a real estate agent (inmobiliaria) representing them.

As a renter in Uruguay, it’s best to have more than one real estate agent representing you… we had four. Why? There is no MLS (multiple listing service) in Uruguay, so oftentimes only the owner’s inmobiliaria and a few of their friends know about each available apartment.

Every real estate agent will have different apartments to show you, so you don’t want to limit yourself to only what one agent has to show you. Luckily we were given that piece of advice our first week here.

We decided to spend our first week exploring Pocitos to get to know the area, and start looking at apartments our second week in Montevideo. We had our room at the Punta Trouville Apart Hotel reserved for three weeks, and we were hoping to have an apartment before the end of that three-week period.

The first apartment in Uruguay we decided to check out was one we saw on the Internet. It was a fully furnished 2-bedroom apartment listed on the Internet for U$S 600.

When we contacted the inmobiliaria, she showed us the apartment and told us the rent was U$S 650… It was also listed as being in Pocitos, but it was actually in Parque Batlle. Next inmobiliaria please.

Our next inmobiliaria showed up to our hotel in a cab and said she didn’t have enough money to pay for a cab to the property. It was a “3-bedroom house” in “the heart of Carrasco,” furnished at U$S 620 per month.

We planned on staying in Pocitos, but that is an AMAZING deal for a furnished 3-bedroom house in Carrasco. She told us it had a “nice patio and a parrilla” and it was “not to far from the beach” and it was “walking distance to everything.”

Well, it was actually in Carrasco Norte. The “3-bedroom house” was a quadra-plex and the unit was a center unit. The 3rd bedroom was off of the kitchen and led to the parrilla, and didn’t have a door… I would consider it a dining room.

It was walking distance to the Portones Shopping Mall; “They have all the stores there, you don’t need any others.” And it was a good 2-3km from the beach… LOL, at least we got to see part of Carrasco we would have not otherwise seen.

After that, we had two other realtors we were working with and they were both phenomenal. We started out looking at furnished one-bedroom Uruguay apartments, thinking that Zoë could sleep in her travel crib in our room since we only planned to sign a six-month lease initially.

While it was a nice idea, we quickly realized we just wouldn’t have enough storage space for our luggage… or much privacy.

So, after seeing several very nice fully furnished one-bedroom Uruguay apartments ranging from U$S 500-900 our first week of looking, we started viewing two-bedroom apartments in our third week in Montevideo.

On Wednesday, we had a full day of apartments to see with our real estate agent. (BTW, because we did a 6-month lease with option to extend; we paid a premium. If you are willing to do a 1-year lease, you can get an even better price…)

The first two-bedroom apartment we saw was beautifully furnished, but overpriced at U$S 1200 per month (gringo discount). Then we saw a couple of Uruguay apartments in a compound type community. The whole community was gated with 24-hour security, and it even had a market and jardin (preschool) in it.

We were told there were a lot of international people and people from the US who lived there. They were reasonable priced U$S 700-850 range, however, the community was very secluded from the heart of Pocitos, where we really wanted to live. In addition to that, if we wanted to live with a bunch of people from the US, we would have stayed in the US. Zoë was tired, so we went home to rest for the day.

The next morning we were out looking at Uruguay apartments again. The first one we saw was down the coast a bit, right on the Rambla.It had amazing views (the yacht club on one side and the beach on the other, but again, it was just a bit too far from the area of Pocitos we wanted to live (at U$S 1000 per month).

The next apartment we saw was a small two-bedroom apartment overlooking the park, and a couple blocks from the water. At, U$S 850, it was perfect. We decided we would take that one…

Until we saw the next and final apartment on our tour. It was only a half of a block from the water and one block from the park. It was nicely furnished and the second bedroom was a little bigger, which was nice for Zoë.

It also had a pool, parrilla (barbeque), gym and 24-hour security. It was slightly more at U$S 900 per month, but gastos communes was less (basically like HOA fees that you as a tenant are responsible for when renting an apartment in Uruguay).

So, we went to lunch to talk about our options and decided to make an offer on the final apartment we saw. We made an offer that day, Thursday. We offered a little less than the asking price, in exchange for paying six months rent up front.

Unfortunately the owner lived in Argentina and was out of town, so we were told we’d have to wait until Monday for an answer. Monday came and we received a counter offer, which we quickly accepted.

However, on Tuesday the owner decided that since Zoë walks, she wanted to renegotiate (I guess she was afraid Zoë would break something). We decided that we weren’t interested in renting from her at that point, and made an offer to rent the other apartment we liked.

Unfortunately, that owner decided that since we did not have an Uruguayan job, he didn’t want to rent to us (even though we were paying six months rent up front plus a security deposit). At least he let us know immediately.

Our real estate agent assured us this was not common, and that it was the first time they’d ever experienced anything like this when working with families like ours to rent an apartment in Uruguay.

Luckily, there was an apartment that had just become available in the heart of Pocitos that they could show immediately.

So, Brian went down to take a look at it (Zoë was down for a nap) and it was perfect! It was bigger, less expensive than either of the other places we were looking at (U$S 700 per month) and right on 21 de Setiembre (one of the main drags in Pocitos), one block from the park and 5 ½ blocks from the water. It has a lavaropa (washing machine), drying lines on our back balcony, and we have a front balcony as well.

We immediately put in an offer on it. It was accepted; we signed the papers Wednesday and moved in on Thursday. It was a great feeling to know that we’d be out of that hotel. As much as we all love each other, we also need our own space.

So, even though it was a trying process to rent an apartment in Uruguay, we’re happy with the way things turned out. We love our apartment. Our porters are great (yes, we have porters… it’s pretty cool). Our apartment came with a parking spot, which we don’t need since we don’t own a car, and Mario (one of our porters) was able to rent it out to another tenant for $1000 Uruguayan pesos per month. So, that essentially dropped our rent to only about U$S 655 per month. We couldn’t even get an unfurnished studio for that price in San Diego, let alone a furnished apartment with porters!

We would also highly recommend the inmobiliaria who helped us our rent our apartment in Montevideo, Uruguay. They are professional, very friendly and extremely helpful. We also found that they had the most listings to offer us to look at in the Pocitos area (they cooperate with several other agents to find you the perfect apartment to rent or buy in Uruguay). You can visit their website here.

As promised here are pictures of our new apartment in Uruguay:

Front Balcony

Living Room

Kitchen

Guest Bathroom (small shower behind door)

Master Bathroom

Zoë’s Bedroom

Master Bedroom

Back Balcony

Massage in Montevideo Uruguay

July 11, 2009 by Brian

UPDATE: Jan is no longer in MVD. Both her and Ken moved on to the beautiful Andes in Ecuador. Not only will we miss them, but our backs will too 😉

If you’ve been looking to get a massage in Montevideo, Uruguay, you have a few options. There are a number of clubs or “spas” around that offer massage services. If you want an “okay” massage, you can get one… BUT… if you want a GREAT massage you’ll want to go to Jan Wallace.

Even though most of you haven’t heard of Jan, many celebrities have. Jan started practicing massage in 1983. She was trained in Oregon and first licensed there. Oregon has very strict licensing guidelines as opposed to Uruguay, which has none.

After practicing for many years in Oregon she moved to San Diego, California where she worked at La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad. La Costa Resort and Spa is the #2 Spa in the world. She was Barbara Walters preferred massage therapist at this spa. After Jan’s time at La Costa, she created her own massage business in San Diego.

Now Jan lives here in the Pocitos area of Montevideo, Uruguay. We had the pleasure of meeting Jan and we immediately took advantage of her services. Wow… Jan gives an awesome massage. We are now her regular clients.

She is trained in a variety of massage techniques, including Swedish Massage, Shiatsu/Acupressure, Reflexology, Sports Massage, Lymphatic Drainage Massage, Trigger Point Therapy, Deep Tissue and Pregnancy Massage.

Additionally, Jan one of a select few individuals in the world who practices Bio Energy Therapy. Bio Energy Therapy is a non-invasive treatment that can help with may chronic problems that are often considered incurable. We opted to use this therapy to help heal some back, neck and shoulder pain. We were surprised at the speed with which we experienced positive results. Jan can explain this technique in much greater detail if you’re interested in learning more.

World Famous Tattoo Artist Visiting Uruguay:
Set Your Appointment Now

July 10, 2009 by Brian

Johnny Luck, world famous tattoo artist, is in Montevideo, Uruguay from now through August 15, 2009. He is setting appointments to work out of Good Luck Tattoo on 21 de Setiembre @ Hellauri.

If you want or need a tattoo, please contact us to set up an appointment. In the meantime, Johnny has an extensive portfolio with him that you can touch and feel, and a couple of examples of his work posted online. Click here to check out his web page.

Click here to contact us.

Getting Your Mail While Living in Uruguay

July 9, 2009 by Brian

Mail forwarding is something we considered before moving to Uruguay. Of course we have an address here in Uruguay, and we do receive mail here… BUT… We soon found out there are several reasons to forward mail through a mail forwarding service.

The biggest reason we decided to use a mail forwarding service is that our US Banks require a US physical address for our accounts. In addition, various other businesses we work with require a US address on file as well.

The second reason we decided to use a mail forwarding service is that we quickly found that many websites we love to shop on don’t ship to Uruguay. The ones that do ship products to Uruguay tend to have an excessive charge (I was quoted $320 for FedEx to ship a case of Agave Nectar to me! It was “only” $90 for the USPS slowest of slow shipping methods).

Before we decided on moving to Uruguay, neither one of us had ever used a mail forwarding service, because we never had a reason to forward our mail. The most we had ever done was put a in forwarding slip at the post office.

We researched a couple of different mail forwarding services. What we were looking for was for a mail forwarding service that was easy to use and transparent. The mail forwarding service we decided on using was Earth Class Mail.

The mail forwarding service we chose, Earth Class Mail, lets us check, manage and forward mail from anywhere in the world, via our computers. So whether we’re in Uruguay, or on a weekend adventure somewhere else in South America, we can access our mail and have it forwarded to us as long as we have Internet.

So we’re going to review the plan we chose to use with the Earth Class Mail, mail forwarding service. Getting started with Earth Class Mail was pretty easy. We first picked the plan we wanted. There are three options: Essential mail forwarding plan, ValuePlus mail forwarding plan and Professional mail forwarding plan. We use the ValuePlus mail forwarding plan for a few reasons:

There are three of us (the Essential mail forwarding plan allows only 1 recipient; ValuePlus mail forwarding plan allows up to five)
The maximum amount of mail pieces received and scanned per month is 100… that is plenty for our needs (you pay a per piece fee if you go over that)
We got a discount by choosing a longer subscription (12 months; you get an even better discount for 24 months)
And, as with all of the mail forwarding plans, we get unlimited shredding, unlimited recycling and free storage for one month

We then had to choose our address. You can either choose to have PO Box or a physical address (or both, depending on your needs and budget). PO Boxes are available at no additional cost. Physical addresses require an additional monthly fee (ranging from $9.95 to $29.95, depending on location). UPS and FedEx won’t deliver to a PO Box and our bank requires a physical address, so we chose to have both.

After that, we had to have a form notarized to give Earth Class Mail permission to receive our mail. And, of course you have to remember to provide your address to friends, family and businesses you work with. After that, we were all set to go.

Once the mail forwarding kicked in and we started getting mail, we realized how easy the service is to use. When Earth Class Mail receives a new piece of mail for us, we receive an email. We then login to our account to see the scanned image of the envelope and can choose to have them:

Scan the envelope’s contents so we can view it online
Have the envelope/package forwarded to our location.
Forward the electronic document (PDF) to anyone we want
Shred personal information
Recycle junk mail
Have the originals archived with Earth Class Mail

We’ve found that by Earth Class Mail’s mail forwarding rates are reasonable. We pay about U$S 50 to have a FedEx Priority envelope forwarded to us in Uruguay. And, we paid as little as U$S 6 for a small package to be Forwarded down to us via USPS

If you’re a European citizen, I also noticed that Earth Class Mail could get you set up with a street address in various European countries and cities.

Overall, we’re very happy with the Earth Class Mail, mail forwarding service and recommend it to anyone that is planning to live or travel abroad.

Get Earth Class Mail Here

Mexican Food in Uruguay

July 7, 2009 by Brian

Coming from San Diego, we didn’t expect to find great Mexican Food in Uruguay (San Diego has the best Mexican food around… I know you probably disagree if you’re from Texas, but that’s okay). Hopeful that we’d be wrong, we decided to look around Montevideo to see what Mexican restaurants Uruguay has to offer.

Our first couple weeks here, we were referred to Roma Tijuana Mexican Restaurant, located at Cnel Mora 533, as being a great Mexican food restaurant. So, we decided to check it out.

We ordered a chips and salsa sampler as our appetizer. Let’s just say we were very happy we brought our own hot sauce with us. The salsa was actually a slightly spicy ketchup, but we fixed that right up with some Tapatio and we were good to go.

I ordered enchiladas, and while they weren’t bad, they definitely weren’t what I was expecting. I thought enchiladas were supposed to be covered with sauce? Not at Roma Tijuana.

Brian got the fajitas. He said they weren’t too bad, but definitely nowhere near to what we’d get in San Diego.

Roma Tijuana is sort of like Mexican food meets Italian food. Interesting, but not what we were looking for. So, strike one in our search for good Mexican food in Uruguay.

We love roaming the streets of Montevideo in search of our next favorite restaurant. Last Friday night we came across La Lupita Mexican Restaurant. It’s located at Luis de la Torre 565, at the corner of Gregorio Suárez in the Punta Carretas barrio of Montevideo.

From the street, it doesn’t look like anything special. But, once you walk inside you know there has to be something special about this place. From the pictures on the wall to the red, white and green streamers across the ceiling, the décor screams Mexico.

The restaurant is small, so if you don’t get there early, expect a wait. The place was packed, and halfway through dinner, we noticed there was a line out the door. But, so far, I would say this is the closest thing to authentic Mexican food in Uruguay that we’ve found.

They served chips and salsa when we sat down. The sauce they served was very mild, but when we asked if they had salsa mas picante, our waitress happily brought out a bowl of spicy salsa (yah!) and a bottle of habanero hot sauce. We never even had to break out our own hot sauce at La Lupita.

I ordered the enchiladas rojas and they actually had sauce on them. They were good, definitely not as good as my homemade ones, but much better than the ones from Roma Tijuana.

Brian got the enchiladas verdes, which were also good, and a cerdo (pork) taco.

Zoë has had an enormous appetite lately, so we ordered her a plate of mini taquitos and tostadas. She just loved dipping the taquitos in the bowl of guacamole. Believe it or not, she finished off this whole platter!

La Lupita also serves Corona (which Brian happily ordered since we haven’t found Corona in too many places in Uruguay) and a full bar of tequilas (which we didn’t sample).

Overall, I would recommend La Lupita Mexican Restaurant if you’re looking for Mexican food in Uruguay. I’m sure we’ll stumble across a couple more Mexican restaurants before long, but for now, La Lupita will be our choice for Mexican food in Uruguay.

Food in Uruguay: What’s For Dinner?

July 5, 2009 by Brian

You know what is really interesting to me about Uruguay? It’s the price and quality of food in Uruguay. I bought 0.8 kilos (1.75lbs) of grass-fed Black Angus Rib Eye steak for 177 pesos (U$S 7.64); 1 nice sized zucchini and a medium sized onion for 12 pesos (U$S .52); and a huge bunch of fresh spinach for 26 pesos (U$S 1.12). Add a little sea salt, pepper, garlic and cayenne pepper. We just got done eating it for dinner… “mmmmmm” as Zoë would say.

What about pesticides? Well I’m glad you asked. I just learned today that a lot of small farmers do not use pesticides. Not because they don’t want to, but because it’s too expensive. I’m cool with that. On the other side of the fence though… The majority of larger farmers do use pesticides. There are some farmers in Uruguay who use pesticides that have been banned in the US for years…

So, we try to get all of our fruits and veggies from the smaller farmers at the local feria (kind of like a farmer’s market and swap meet all in one) rather than at the grocery stores and giant stands at the feria…

We’re Having a Baby In Uruguay!

July 3, 2009 by Brian

Yep, we’re having a baby in Uruguay! Zoë is no longer going to be an only child… she’s going to make such a great big sister.

We officially got word from the doctor today that everything looks good and our little one is expected around February 6, 2010. That means I’m nine weeks along. We couldn’t be happier. We definitely planned on having another baby in the future, but it looks like the future is coming faster than expected.

So after we told our families, there was a common question among them… “Are you going to come back to San Diego to have your baby?”

Our answer: “Why would we do that? Uruguay has great hospitals and wonderful medical care. We live here… Uruguay is our home for now, so we plan to have our baby here.”

After talking with some friends that had a baby in Uruguay, we’ve decided to look into having it at Hospital Británico (the British Hospital in Uruguay). The technology and service level is top notch, and we’ve been referred to a Doctor that speaks excellent English.

We’ve found that there isn’t much information available online about what to expect when having a baby in Uruguay. We were looking at into buying into a Uruguayan Hospital’s Insurance Plan. We still are… but being pregnant is considered a pre-existing condition. That means we’ll be paying all pregnancy related expenses from doctor’s visits to tests to the delivery out of pocket.

We’ll also be journaling about our experiences with pregnancy and having a baby in Uruguay. How that benefits you is… After our little one is born, we’ll be putting everything into an eBook that will hopefully make it easier for other expatriate families to navigate the process of having a baby in Uruguay. And of course, we’ll have updates here on our Uruguay blog!

Brian, Chrystal & Zoë

Check Out This Uruguay Blog

July 2, 2009 by Brian

When we were preparing to move to Montevideo, we starting reading several Uruguay blogs. One Uruguay blog we came across shortly before the move was http://www.urmovingwhere.com.

Brad and Lisa, a couple a little bit older than us who have a daughter just five months older than Zoë, Geneva, started the blog after they moved to Uruguay. We traded emails with them several times before our move to Montevideo, and keep in contact with them now that we’re living in Uruguay. Zoë and Geneva love to play together.

Picture of Zoë and Geneva enjoying a homemade taco dinner

If you like our Uruguay blog, we thought you might be interested in learning about their experiences in Montevideo. Their life here is just a bit different from ours and may be able to give you another perspective on life in Uruguay.

Here are a few of the differences between our families:

They’re from Minnesota; we’re from Southern California
We live in an apartment; they live in a house.
Geneva attends a jardin (pre-school); Zoë stays home with us.
They work more typical jobs remotely; we operate a few of our own businesses part time.
Brad does travel insurance, so if you are in need be sure to chat with him; Click here to visit his main website or Click here to see his insurance comparison engine.
Lisa is an interior designer and does it remotely; Click here to visit her website.
Brad is a Vegetarian (and we know there are a lot of you out there that may be wondering what it’s like to live in Uruguay, where Beef is the #1 GDP).
They’ve lived in Uruguay about two months longer than us.

We hope you like Brad and Lisa’s Uruguay Blog!

Deciphering the Language in Uruguay: Check Your Mexican Spanish at the Door

June 27, 2009 by Brian

To prepare for our move to Uruguay, Brian and I did research to figure out the best way for us to learn Spanish. We decided upon the Michel Thomas CD courses:

For less than $150, you get a complete course designed by a world-renowned language instructor. Unfortunately Michel Thomas died back in 2005, but his CD course is great. Here is a short 5-minute video where one of his teachers speaks about the courses.

On the flip side, this program (and pretty much every program out there), teaches Spain (Castilian) and/or Mexican Spanish. The dialect in Uruguay is very different, so, we literally had to check our Mexican Spanish at the door when we arrived in Uruguay.

Most of the time we’ll be understood if we use Mexican Spanish, but we want to go beyond that and truly speak like the Uruguay locals.

Luckily we’ve befriended several Uruguay locals that speak English who’ve been helping us navigate the language differences. We’re constantly asking them to explain how to properly say this or that.

Interacting with them on a regular basis has been a tremendous help in developing our language skills in Uruguay. Everyday we get a big “ah-ha” of some sort that helps everything make just a little bit more sense.

We only learned the “usted” (formal) and “tu” (familiar) forms of verbs before moving to Uruguay. When we got here, we found the “usted” form isn’t used much (if you do, the person will often smile at you and ask where you’re from or correct you with the “tu” form). But out of respect, we still use the “usted” form.

We certainly don’t want to unintentionally offend anyone, especially since we’re still new to the culture in Uruguay. The “tu” form is used with people you don’t know well, but with close friends/ family there is an additional form, “vos.” We’re still working on learning that one.

Here are some other differences we’ve noticed between Mexican Spanish and the Spanish in Uruguay:

“Double L’s” are not pronounced with a “Y” sound; they’re pronounced with a “Sh” sound. So “Me llamo” (my name) is pronounced “May shamo” rather than “May yamo.”
Same goes for “Y” sounds, such as with “playa” (beach). Instead of pronouncing it how it looks, “ply-uh,” it’s pronounced “pla-sha” in Uruguay.
In Mexican Spanish, “V” is pronounced with a subtle “B” sound. In Uruguayan Spanish, “V” is pronounced with “V” sound the same way it would be in English. So, “vamos” (we’re going) is pronounced “va-mos,” not “ba-mos.”
Rarely do you here someone say “adios.” “Chau” is the proper way to say goodbye.
The “H” at the start of many words is pronounced. In Mexican Spanish, if you were to say “mi hija” (my daughter), you simply say, “me-haw” (it’s usually contracted to mi’ja). In Uruguay, you pronounce every syllable and say “me hee-haw.”
The singular version of greetings is used (and often the words are run together and not very enunciated). For instance, a lot of the time you hear “Buen dia” instead of “Buenos dias.”
To ask, “What’s up?” you say often hear “Que tal?” instead of “Que pasa?”
If you are having a conversation with someone in English, it’s common to say “yes” or “yeah” through the conversation to acknowledge you’re listening. Rather than saying “si,” you can say “ta” in Uruguay.

There are many options to take Spanish classes in Uruguay, but we’re enjoying the opportunity, and challenges, of learning through immersion. So, I’m sure that there will be many more new discoveries to come as we continue to learn Spanish in Uruguay.

How We Communicate with Family and Friends While in Uruguay

June 19, 2009 by Brian

When we decided to move to Uruguay, one of the first questions we asked ourselves was, “How are we going to keep in communication with friends and family?”

Calling long distance is pretty expensive (like $2.50/minute), and we knew not everyone could afford those types of rates. We wanted to make sure everyone could call us whenever they wanted, and not have to worry about money.

Not to mention, when we conduct business… We do it with people in the U.S. and we don’t want to pay U$S 100 an hour to talk on the phone… Our profits would be gone.

We’ve been using Vonage for years, so we assumed once we made the move to Uruguay, we would continue using the San Diego number we had through the VOIP (voice over internet phone) service to communicate with friends and family back in the States. It was always reliable and only $24.99 per month for unlimited local and long distance calls in the U.S.

When we were in the States, we were on the phone a lot with our business, so Vonage worked well for us. But, we knew once we made the move to Uruguay that we’d be doing a lot of our communication via email, and the phone would only be used for personal calls and the occasional business call.

We tried Skype and had a ton of problems with it. We know some people swear by Skype, we’re just not those people.

Brian heard about MagicJack from an infomercial before our move to Uruguay. For only $39.99 for the first year and $19.99 each year after that (not to mention, once you sign up,
MagicJack will send you an offer to extend for an additional 5 years for $60), you get unlimited local and long distance calls to the United States and Canada.

MagicJack comes with voicemail, call waiting and call forwarding. The only downside is MagicJack does not allow you to retain your current phone number or transfer your number.

It sounded too good to be true, but we decided to order one and try it out… It was only $40…

We got it a few weeks before our big move to Uruguay, tried it with our high speed cable internet service a few times and immediately canceled Vonage. The service worked very well, the calls were crystal clear and it was a fraction of the cost of Vonage.

To use the MagicJack, all you need to do is:

Plug your phone (any household phone will work) into the MagicJack.
Or plug your headset into the MagicJack (most professional headsets will work).
Or plug your handset into the MagicJack (most handsets will work).
- We have a “powered” phone, meaning it plugs into a power outlet. Everything works best when we plug the powered phone into the MagicJack. We use our headset and handset via the powered phone. The reason we think the quality is better is there are amplifiers in the powered phone which boost the signal.
Plug the MagicJack into a USB port on your computer.
Wait 30 seconds while the program loads.
Pick up the phone and dial your call either via the keypad on your phone or via the soft phone on your screen.
Talk to anyone in the US or Canada for free.

The voicemail sends you an mp3 to your email so you can listen to it through your computer… So you don’t have to worry about missing a message if you’re on your computer and the MagicJack isn’t plugged in.

This feature really came in handy when we first arrived in Uruguay and were still staying in the hotel because we couldn’t have our phone plugged into the MagicJack all of the time. The hotel had free WiFi (as most places here do)… And we just used the phone that came to the room

We’ve been using MagicJack regularly now that we’re living in Uruguay, and overall we’re very satisfied with the service.

We do lose the occasional call during the early evening hours due to our sometimes-slow Internet connection. But, that’s because we have ADSL Internet service, and the phone lines can only carry so much bandwidth (when we had cable Internet in the States, the sound was crystal clear and we never lost or even had interference in a single call).

For $20/year, we really can’t complain. We will definitely continue using MagicJack and don’t plan on going back to Vonage anytime soon.

I’m not so sure the service would be much better with any other VOIP service anyhow since they are all dependent on the Internet connection (We’ve heard similar concerns about dropped calls with Skype and Vonage use in Uruguay), and our only choice for High-Speed Internet here is ASDL.

If you’re living or traveling outside of the US, or planning to do so sometime in the near future, we highly recommend checking into the MagicJack.

Buy a MagicJack here.

How do you keep in contact with your family, friends and business associates when you’re abroad?