Useful tools for other students aborad

I assume pretty much everyone who would be reading this is also abroad or are thinking about going at some point. Here are a few essential tools that I have found and have been using to help keep me connected with everyone at home and abroad:

• Skype - Download this to place phone calls over the internet to any land-line or even cell phones. Skype can also be used for AIM-type chat, including audio and video chats

• Hostelworld.com - This is a useful website for finding and booking hostels. You can search for hostels in almost every city in Europe (and around the world) based on location, price and quality. You can also book hostels from the website. Once you create a free account, you can add friends and see which hostels they have been to or where they might be going

• Flickr.com - This is a free photosharing website that allows you to post pictures for everyone to see. It is an easier interface than Facebook and Flickr allows you to tag each photo with geographic location among other things. Overall, Flickr is a great and easy way to show friends and family you pictures from abroad

This is a preliminary list of websites and programs that are useful for traveling students. If you know of another feel free to let me know and I'll post it here. Also, for all three of these my user name is bwschultz so feel free to sign-up/download all of these and add me to keep connected.

EDIT:

• International Student ID Card (ISIC) - This student ID card gets you sick deals on admission to hostels, museums and other attractions. It's like $20 and it definitely pays for itself. I got mine in Piedmont from Ubiquity International, or go to any STA travel place and they'll make it in like 10 minutes