Call home from anywhere
in the world
Hotel WiFi in Tokyo. Airport lounge in Dubai. Cafe in Paris. Open Telvio, dial, and your family answers their regular phone. No roaming. No SIM swap. Rates from $0.03/min.
Download Telvio FreeCalling home from abroad costs a fortune
Three options. All of them expensive, inconvenient, or both.
$5–15/min
Hotel phone
The most convenient option is also the most expensive. A 10-minute call home costs more than dinner.
$1–3/min
Carrier roaming
Still expensive, and the bill arrives weeks after your trip. Surprise charges are common, and rates vary by destination.
Time + hassle
Local SIM swap
Finding a store, dealing with language barriers, losing your home number — all to make calls for a few days.
Everything you need for calls abroad
Works on any WiFi — hotel, airport, cafe
Connect to the network that's already around you. No special setup. No VPN. No configuration. Just open the app and dial. Telvio works on any standard internet connection with at least 100 kbps of bandwidth.
No SIM swap, no lost number
Your home number stays active. Friends and family can still reach you the normal way. Telvio works alongside your existing number, not instead of it.
See the rate before you call
The per-minute cost shows on screen before you connect. No surprises, no bill shock. Cancel before connecting if you change your mind.
Minutes carry over between trips
Buy a pack before your trip. Use what you need. Return home with 40 minutes left. Those 40 minutes will be there for your next trip — no expiration date, ever.
Tokyo, 9 PM. You just arrived.
01
Connect to the hotel WiFi. It takes 30 seconds.
02
Open Telvio. Dial your family at home.
03
They pick up their regular phone. You talk for 20 minutes. Total cost: $3.80.
vs. $100+ on the hotel phone. No registration. No contract. No surprise bill.
Top travel destinations
Per-minute rates to landlines and mobiles. No connection fees added.
| Destination | Landline | Mobile |
|---|---|---|
| 🇯🇵 Japan | $0.19/min | $0.19/min |
| 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | $0.03/min | $0.03/min |
| 🇩🇪 Germany | $0.27/min | $0.27/min |
| 🇫🇷 France | $0.35/min | $0.35/min |
| 🇦🇺 Australia | $0.23/min | $0.23/min |
| 🇹🇭 Thailand | $0.57/min | $0.57/min |
| 🇮🇹 Italy | $1.67/min | $1.67/min |
| 🇪🇸 Spain | $0.21/min | $0.21/min |
Rates shown are samples. Full list of 200+ countries available in the app. Rates subject to change.
See all country ratesQuestions from travelers
Does Telvio work on hotel WiFi?
Yes. Telvio works on any WiFi network, including hotel, airport, and cafe connections. As long as you have internet access, you can make calls. Most hotel networks are fast enough for clear voice calls.
Do I need to buy a local SIM card in the country I'm visiting?
No. Telvio uses your existing internet connection — hotel WiFi, airport WiFi, or your home carrier's roaming data. You never need to swap SIMs or change your number.
Does Telvio work on airplane WiFi?
It depends on the airline. Some in-flight WiFi services block VoIP traffic. On the ground at the airport, any standard WiFi connection works perfectly.
What if the WiFi signal is slow or unstable?
Telvio is designed to work on low-bandwidth connections. A stable connection of 100 kbps is enough for a clear call. If the signal drops, the call may disconnect, but you are only billed for the seconds you were connected.
Can I call emergency services (911, 112, etc.) with Telvio?
No. Telvio cannot be used to contact emergency services. Always use a local SIM, hotel phone, or emergency call feature on your phone for emergencies.
Do my minutes expire between trips?
No. Telvio minutes never expire. Buy a pack before one trip, use what you need, and the remaining balance will be there for your next trip six months later.
Your next trip is covered
Download Telvio free. One free minute included. No registration needed.
Download TelvioWhat actually happens to your phone abroad
The moment a phone connects to a foreign network it is roaming, and roaming is priced by your home operator under an agreement with the foreign one. That agreement is why the same call costs a different amount in two neighbouring countries, and why the price bears no relation to the cost of carrying it.
Typical voice roaming runs between one and three dollars a minute outside any bundled zone. Data roaming is worse per unit and easier to trigger accidentally, because a phone left on will fetch mail, sync photos and check for updates without being asked. The classic surprise bill is not a long call; it is a background sync on a cruise ship, where the network is satellite-backed and priced accordingly.
Regional agreements have flattened this in some places — inside the EU, roaming is charged at domestic rates for EU subscribers — and left it untouched everywhere else. A traveller from outside those zones gets no benefit from them at all.
The four ways to call while travelling, and what each costs
| Carrier roaming | Works with no setup and keeps your number. One to three dollars a minute outside a bundled zone, and the most expensive option by a wide margin. Useful for the calls you cannot plan — a bank, an emergency, a hotel. |
|---|---|
| A local SIM or eSIM | Cheap for local calls and data, and usually the right answer for a long stay. The cost is a different number, which means two-factor codes sent to your home number stop arriving unless you keep the original SIM active in a second slot. |
| An internet calling app | A few cents a minute to reach an ordinary phone number anywhere, over whatever connection you have. No SIM swap and no new number. It needs data, which on a local eSIM is cheap. |
| A free messaging app | Free and conditional. The person you are calling must have the same app, a smartphone and a connection. Fine for family who do; useless for a hotel switchboard, an airline or a landline. |
Before you leave: a five-minute checklist
- 1
Save every number in full international form
With the plus sign and the country code, without the domestic trunk prefix. A number stored as +44 20 7946 0958 dials correctly from every country you will be in; one stored as 020 7946 0958 works only at home. Do this for your bank, your insurer and the people you would call in an emergency.
- 2
Turn off data roaming, then turn on what you need
The default is on, and the background traffic is where surprise bills come from. Turning it off and enabling data for one application at a time is a two-minute change that removes the entire failure mode.
- 3
Note the exit code where you are going
00 across most of Europe, Asia and Africa; 011 in the United States and Canada; 0011 from Australia. On a mobile you can hold 0 for a plus and skip this entirely, which is why the plus is worth the habit.
- 4
Check the time difference for the people you will call
Not for politeness alone: a call that reaches voicemail costs the connection and achieves nothing. The planner draws both days with the overlap marked.
- 5
Test your headset
Airports and hotel rooms are the worst acoustic environments you will use a phone in. A microphone that is marginal at home is unintelligible in a departure lounge.
Calling home versus being called
These are different problems and travellers routinely solve only the first. An internet calling app lets you dial out cheaply; it does not give anyone a number to reach you on.
If people need to reach you, the options are: keep your home SIM active for incoming calls only (incoming roaming is often cheaper than outgoing, and in some regions free), use a messaging app for people who have one, or get a local number and tell the few people who need it.
The failure mode worth planning around is two-factor authentication. Codes go to your home number, so a phone that cannot receive SMS abroad locks you out of your bank at the moment you most need it. Confirm before you leave that your authentication does not depend on receiving a text on a SIM you are about to swap out.
Bottom line
Carrier roaming at one to three dollars a minute is the expensive default, and switching away from it saves more than any other choice you make. An internet calling app reaches ordinary phone numbers for a few cents from whatever connection you have.
Do two things before you leave: store every important number in full international form with the plus sign, and check that your two-factor codes do not depend on receiving an SMS on a SIM you are about to swap.
Frequently asked questions
How can I avoid roaming charges while travelling?
Turn off data roaming before you leave, then enable data only for the applications you need. For calls, use an internet calling app over WiFi or a local eSIM's data allowance rather than the voice network — that is the difference between a few cents a minute and one to three dollars.
Is it cheaper to use WiFi calling abroad?
Carrier WiFi calling usually is not: it uses your existing plan and roaming rates still apply in most agreements. A third-party internet calling app is different — it bypasses the carrier entirely and charges its own per-minute rate to the destination, which is where the saving comes from.
Should I get a local SIM or use an app?
A local eSIM is the better answer for data and for local calls on a longer stay. An app is better for calling home, because it keeps you reachable on your usual identity and does not require anyone to learn a new number. Many travellers use both: local data, app for voice.
Will I still get my two-factor codes abroad?
Only if your phone can still receive SMS on the number those codes are sent to. Swapping to a local SIM in a single-SIM phone breaks that, and it is the most common way a traveller locks themselves out of a bank. Check before you go, and move critical accounts to an authenticator app if you can.
Can I call a hotel or an airline from a calling app?
Yes, if the number is an ordinary geographic or mobile number. Freephone numbers are the exception: they are free from inside the country and generally unreachable from outside it, which is why airlines and banks publish a separate geographic number for international callers.
Does an internet call work on hotel WiFi?
Usually, but it is the connection most likely to disappoint. Hotel networks are congested and often lose packets in bursts, which breaks up speech even when the raw speed looks fine. Mobile data on a local eSIM is frequently the better connection for a call.
