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Cheapest way of running a mobile phone in Central America

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Pancho:
As you may recall, I'm sending my youngest daughter to boarding school in the jungle. (That sounds bad, doesn't it? ). She'll be out there in 4 month stints and wants a mobile phone. As she's going to have to a multi country, multi flight, school run on her own I'd rather like her to have one as well.

Any clues? I'm not so much interested in cheap so much as functional for the travel but something cheap for the static periods in the UK and abroad might be good for the selfie-per-minute comms pattern of the yoof.

Kim:
Multiple SIMs is probably the best approach.  Have one that'll roam for the travel.

Cudzoziemiec:
Maybe a dual-SIM phone? One for local use, which she'll get when she's there, and one for UK.

mrcharly-YHT:
Buy a local SIM when she gets there. More likely to work and will be cheaper.

Make sure she has an old-school non-smartphone as a backup.

For inter-continental communications, Skype and Facebook chat work wonderfully. I'd be incredibly shocked if her destination's accommodation doesn't have decent wifi to most rooms. Assuming your daughter has a reasonably modern laptop, it will have a built-in vid cam so you and MrsPancho can video chat.

Oh, and for travel - a smartphone or tablet that can run skype is great, most airports have WiFi.

MsC found this very useful. Not least because when flights went wrong she could get on the internet and find out flight info. She used a Kindle Fire tablet for this, which was better for web browsing than a phone and has very good battery life.

Packing a charger and international socket converters into her hand luggage was useful.

As for packing tips of what to take, one of the most useful things I sent with MsC was a UK extension cord (with 4 sockets and built in RCD) with a 'local' plug put on the flex. It meant she could plug that into a socket into her room and have several sockets for her UK electronics and appliances (such as hair drier).  I think it was someone on here who gave me that idea.

Pancho:
Good advice. Particularly the extension lead wheeze. Sockets are a rare and valuable commodity in UK school boarding houses and I certainly wouldn't expect it to be better Abroad.

I'll look up dual sims but thinking about it, a second (dumb) phone might be the way to go.

Am still hoping she won't be the only Brit. Some company en route would be nice as she's not an experienced traveller. She's been to Yorkshire. Once.

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