Some useful advice for travelers, from the National Post:

If you go away on holiday this year, don’t end up like Calgary resident Jason Boutang. He used an application on his phone to translate phrases into French when he visited France last month. He also streamed a Calgary radio station for five hours.

The result? A cellphone bill of $7,763.70, according to [the] telecomblog.com. It’s easy to rack up huge roaming fees when you travel overseas because cellphone companies charge astronomical surcharges just to cross the border. But if you make a few preparations before you leave, you can keep your costs at a reasonable level.

“I recommend that if you go away and you want to use your phone, that you call your cell provider and get a travel package,” said Stephen Joyce, the CEO of the tourism technology company Rezgo.com.

Travel packages are a relatively new feature offered by cellphone companies. They charge different rates depending on the region. While the per-minute rate is still significantly higher than using your phone locally, it will offer travellers some savings. Otherwise, it could cost as much as $4 per minute for calls and $50 per megabyte for data usage, depending on where in the world you are. Text messages are also more expensive overseas, at about 60 cents per message.

Via story-mentioned @stephenjoyce and this topic has been previously covered here. Just as a general rule, even if you have a roaming package, don’t do streaming radio, watch videos and other bandwidth-intensive things on your smartphone unless you’re really sure you’re not going to be paying through the nose for it.