McGarvey’s Words

For 10 years I have had an AOL account and for 10 years I have been amazed by the amount of prejudice aimed at the service. “Nobody will take you seriously,” CompuServe users used to sniff about those with AOL email addresses – and that was back in the days when CompuServe users had stunningly inelegant and infelicitous addresses (such as 76532, 1212) and of course it was before AOL swallowed up the stumbling CompuServe.

“Only children use AOL” is another bit of silliness one hears and of course it has about as much validity as the statement that MSN subscribers are all MacArthur fellows.

Chew on this: AOL just may be the absolute best service for business travelers. That is why I keep it.

Yes, AOL is big among teens and pre-teens. Yes, it offers a lot of bubblegum on its opening screens. But I repeat: business travelers oughtn’t to leave home without it.

At home I rely on Comcast cable because it is lightning fast but when I travel I turn to AOL, just as I have done for years. Wherever I go, there is AOL dial-up access and, in recent months, that has included Taos, NM; Long Beach, CA; Vancouver, Canada; San Francisco; and still farther flung outposts.

The only place I can recall not finding local AOL service is Bangkok a few years ago, but now I am looking at AOL’s list of international access nodes and I see there are a half-dozen Bangkok numbers. The charge? In Thailand, the going rate appears to be a dime a minute. In Ireland, it is $3.95/hr in Dublin, a little higher elsewhere. In Bali, it is $6/hr. Keep circling the globe and, just about anywhere, there is access via an AOL number that won’t break the bank. Is it reliable? In Hong Kong, Santiago, Belfast, Salzburg, Munich, and down a line of international cities I have enjoyed crisp, fast connections via AOL. In some places (Indonesia, for instance), the AOL numbers have been balky, slow, full of static – but, hey, so is the national phone system. International travelers just get a very sweet deal with AOL access.

In the United States, however, access via local numbers is free. If there isn’t a local number (a rarity), 800-number access is available at $6/hr. I’ll confess I’m lazy and if I’m hitting a number of small towns for one-night stands (Blythe, CA; Coalinga CA; etc) rather than querying AOL for the local number – a simple matter of dialing into a toll-free number – I’ll use the 800 number and be done with worry.

Another AOL plus: easy interface on a Palm with AOL email (AOL sells the software for $19.95). When traveling just with my Palm I set up other email addresses to forward to my AOL account and I am in business.

Yes, there are many other reasons to use AOL – news clippings on demand (key word: News Profiles); stock portfolios (key word: portfolio); even a reminder service that sends automated nags that you want to get (key word: reminder). If there is an online service you like and use, probably it is built into AOL which is a sprawling mall of an ISP that has pretty much every function a user might crave.

Another key advantage of AOL: most functionality is unobtrusive. Use what you want, ignore the rest and, truth is, I ignore the vast majority of what AOL has on tap. To me, its best use is as Internet pipe, it’s other good use is to handle email, at least sometimes, and I don’t much fiddle with the rest. I just pay the monthly fee (around $25 as I recall) and know that because AOL is on my laptop and my Palm I am guaranteed access throughout most of the globe.

What’s not to like about that?

Do you have better solutions? How do you get online abroad? Domestically? Tell us and we’ll post the best emails in the McGarvey’s Words letters page (which, incidentally, is a great resource for finding reader advice on everything from world phones to tips for email retrieval when away from the desk. Check it out!).

Want to keep reading McGarvey's Words? Sign up for Joe Brancatelli's weekly email notification of new travel columns that have posted to JoeSentMe.com. McGarvey's Words usually posts every other week, except when it doesn't. How to get this update? Just send Joe a blank E-mail and Joe will sign you up personally.

Click here to visit Joe Brancatelli's Travel Site JoeSentMe.com

Keep coming back, for more of McGarvey’s Words.

Taos Land Sale: Click For Details

Have a cruise complaint? File it with Porthole Magazine's Ombudsman.

McGarvey on Publishers Marketplace: Brain Wars

About Robert McGarvey

Author of How to Dotcom (Entrepreneur Press), McGarvey is writing a book on Brain Wars, the rise of cognitive science and the search for truths about thinking. A onetime columnist for BizTravel.com, he is a frequent contributor to dozens of magazines, ranging from American Legion to Selling Power, American Way, and Rutgers. He has also contributed to Harvard Business Review. For the past five years, he has served as "The Ombudsman" for PORTHOLE Cruise Magazine. Still curious about McGarvey? Read up on him here.

Taos Land Sale: Click For Details