<p>MacBook air will be good for her vacation. As for phones etc, you are spoiling her vacation by doing it for her.</p>
<p>^I disagree with the above. I studied abroad (in the Netherlands) before the iPhone ever came out and smartphones were available, and if there is one thing that could’ve improved my experience abroad, a GPS-enabled mapping app would probably be that thing. I was extremely independent and traveled solo most of the time on my bicycle, but I had to do so with a paper map which screams “Tourist!” and opens you to potential petty theft and targeting. Also, paper maps are purpose driven - mine had biking routes on it but not Internet cafes, coffeehouses (as opposed to coffeeshops <em>wink</em>), shopping districts or public transit stops. With a mapping app on a smartphone you can find all of that in one location if you want to know where the nearest rated restaurant or cool museum is.</p>
<p>Getting lost (and thus finding new things) is the best thing about studying abroad but that doesn’t mean using a map when appropriate ruins things. So yeah, I would purchase a cheap unlocked older generation smartphone that you can put a local SIM card in for use. I had an unlocked Motorola RAZR at the time (ha!) that I used with the local chip. In my experience the program rents whatever the cheapest cell phones are, so the phones we were given were kind of like those old Nokias, except smaller.</p>
<p>I think a smartphone would be better for this purpose than a tablet. More portable, and probably more difficult to steal.</p>
<p>But I brought my regular computer with me and that was just fine. If you need to write papers (and, like me, do an independent research project) it’s indispensable; tablets are not really replacements for a computer. If I HAD a tablet I would certainly bring that along, but I’m not sure I would buy one specifically for the studying abroad. I will say, though, as the owner of a MBP and an iPad that the iPad is extremely useful for taking notes and reading books and articles when I don’t want to tote my laptop, and nowadays there are a variety of options for Bluetooth keyboards that can easily be detached when you only want to carry the tablet (Logitech sells a good one that doubles as a cover, and Amazon sells a really cheap one - $30 - that I happen to have and occasionally take with me).</p>
<p>“Except for AmEx, not a single one of our US-based credit card providers offers cards with a chip and PIN.”</p>
<p>Actually, there are a couple of credit unions that offer true chip and PIN. Andrews FCU and United Nations FCU do.</p>
<p>There are quite a few cards beginning to be available in the US with chip and signature, and those will work for anything in Europe except unattended kiosks that require chip-and-PIN.</p>
<p>I went to Europe with no chipped cards and got by just fine. You just have to be sure to carry a little cash at all times, plan ahead to buy metro cards at the convenience store instead of at an unmanned kiosk, and have a little patience when convincing shopkeepers they really <em>can</em> accept your antiquated magnetic stripe.</p>
<p>Chip and signature eliminates the last of those concerns, which is by far the most common problem I ran into.</p>
<p>However, the most important thing with credit/debit cards is not whether they are chipped or not, but the foreign transaction fees that can quickly add up. Make sure to get debit and credit cards that do not have these fees, and it can save 3% or more on all of your spending. I have a Charles Schwab debit card, a Chase Sapphire Visa, and a Capital One Mastercard for foreign travel - all fee-free, and the Schwab debit will even reimburse the ATM fees charged by the ATM provider.</p>
<p>I mean you’ll be spoiling her vacation by sorting all of these things out for her, as her parent? I thought the point of study abroad was that it forced students to organize their own tours?</p>
<p>You can get the chip with the Citibank credit cards.
Also, Bank of America has agreements with banks in practically every country in Europe that allows you to use their ATM’s to access your US account for no fee.</p>
<p>I lived in Germany for 3 years starting in 2009. I had a Bank of America account as it was no problem putting money in or moving money out of that account overseas. The debit card worked at most ATMs, but ironically not Citibank ATMs. At least in Germany, they don’t bat an eyelash if you whip out a 50 Euro note to pay with, unlike here in the USA when you get the stinkey when you pay with a $20.</p>
<p>One more thing to watch out for is conversion rates. Read somewhere recently about a traveller who was trying out a card with no foreign transaction fees. Then he noticed that the conversion rates were horrible when compared with the non-“free” cards. That won’t be true for all cards with no transaction fee, of course, but it’s something to keep in mind.</p>