Email on the Road Question

The background: A recent trip to Costa Rica was an "email eyeopener"! Was staying at a nice hotel from off the plane & using their computers to find that Hotmail has a security thing they do for your protection when a certain distance from home. In this case it kept me from using my email. My wife also has hotmail/email & hers worked on her phone but not on a desk top computer.
My hotmail security question goes to home phone whereas we were not home to "get it". I tried to get it opened through my wife's cell phone & they closed down her hotmail! We did manage to get hers back open again but never with mine. There is a 30 day waiting period to make a switch to keep the bad guys from getting in at time of their effort. I tried every way we could think of but no luck while there. As I had planned a solo MC rental trip to the boonies I wanted email as the used phone I'd bought on ebay @ short notice(mine wouldn't work there-CR is a SIM card country) was locked & the guy/seller wouldn't unlock it, thus no phone either while on the ride.
I planned to make the switch to another way to travel & unlock my hotmail after getting home. LOL as they say these days! If you've ever tried to contact microsoft, well takes over a month! I tried going in on my own and account got shut down, even though I was home. I reopened the account and sent them a message. After reading the whole response the other day I must admit I don't see a means to use my Hotmail during foreign travel.The issue seems to be that I'm protected even from myself using Hotmail? The security question response means is limited in choices!
Ideas? PM me if the response qualifies as a "best not said on the open web" sort of idea.

If one is depending on email for communication it is a very good idea to have at least two or more providers that you use and for which the prime people you will interact with are aware of. Use well known international providers such as gmail, yahoo, etc. In the industry email is "not a guaranteed delivery service". This means much other data travelling on the internet is doing so at a higher priority so your email data will normally get there but data for something else like a bank transaction will get there first and is "guaranteed" to arrive in a specified delivery interval (SLA) and with a quality metric. Email is also a messy service for international carriers because more of the data is SPAM than is not (I work in the industry and this is not an exaggeration). Many people use some email services as their junk provider when forced to provide a valid email to register for something else. This is a good practice - just don't mix them up I or you will be sifting through hundreds of SPAM messages every day. My advice is to sign up with one more email service at least to give yourself some protection and access. Good luck.

Can you post Hotmail's reply? (Deleting your personal details, of course.)

HA! When I got around to reading(as in try to read it ) the response, it had disappeared! It was still in my inbox but when you open it there's nothing there. If I went into my account with Microsoft the case number was there but said it was closed. I sure go the surveys asking how they did-twice. Gave them a raving(as in ticked off) review too.
I understand that they are protecting me but the few security question choices offered to unlock your email makes for unusable hotmail when away from home. We're not pro's with a computer but have some basic skills & there was just no way for me to use my hotmail in Costa Rica. If my wife had been home to answer the phone it would have been simple for her to answer the security question, then I'd have been good to go.
I have witnessed the increase in junk as a result of travel & email use but try to protect myself from damage by careful use. I'm sure open to ideas???

Back to my original post & question: DOES GMAIL WORK IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES? Or, IS IT LOCKED DOWN LIKE HOTMAIL ?

I have had no issues with gmail but have only tried it in the USA, Canada, Netherlands and Great Britain so no off-beat or Iron Curtain countries.

To add some good info. to this subject: In a reply to the same subject posted on ADV a commercial pilot stated that all the people he works with, obviously all frequent travelers,many foreign, use gmail with no particular problems. My own internet search shows this to usually be true but not always. Apparently gmail does issue an email warning that "some people" get when they travel away from home and use email both locations. This is a much different approach than shutting you down like I experienced with hotmail!

kantuckid said:

HA! When I got around to reading(as in try to read it ) the response, it had disappeared! It was still in my inbox but when you open it there's nothing there. If I went into my account with Microsoft the case number was there but said it was closed. I sure go the surveys asking how they did-twice. Gave them a raving(as in ticked off) review too.
I understand that they are protecting me but the few security question choices offered to unlock your email makes for unusable hotmail when away from home. We're not pro's with a computer but have some basic skills & there was just no way for me to use my hotmail in Costa Rica. If my wife had been home to answer the phone it would have been simple for her to answer the security question, then I'd have been good to go.
I have witnessed the increase in junk as a result of travel & email use but try to protect myself from damage by careful use. I'm sure open to ideas???

Back to my original post & question: DOES GMAIL WORK IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES? Or, IS IT LOCKED DOWN LIKE HOTMAIL ?

Click to expand...

I use multiple email services here in CR without an issue. I like the recommendation of multiple carriers and dummy addresses for avoiding spam

Strongly suggest bring aUNLOCKED smartphone. Cell service is good and far cheaper than the US. Download and use WhatsApp and Waze. Everyone here uses them as cell charges are for minutes and texts but not data.

Art