When you arrive to Guatemala as a tourist, immigration will automatically stamp your passport with a 90-day stamp. After 90 days it is required that you leave the country for 72 hours or that you go to the INGUAT office in Guatemala City to renew the visa, which requires leaving your passport and photocopies of every page as well as of your credit card for 5 business days. This applies to visitors from the US, Canada and the EU, among other countries. Check with your local consulate for details regarding your home country.

Bank Machines are an excellent way to obtain local funds. ATMs are widely available in the more populated parts of the country and even in some of the more remote areas. This allows you to travel with small amounts of cash  without having to pay more for travelers checks or worry about having large amounts of money to exchange. Make sure before you go that your card is compatible with foreign machines and also that you will not be charged an astronomical withdrawal fee for a foreign ATM. Citibank and other multinational chains do not charge fees for international withdrawals, but smaller banks typically do.

Generally, VISA is the most accepted credit card -- that includes ATM machines (called cajeros in Guatemala). If you need to hit up the ATM, it is best to go during the day. Don't accept help from anyone while in the ATMs and be sure to spread your money around so that it isn't all in one place-- just in case!

We highly recommend buying a SIM card for your cell phone in Guatemala. This will enable you to make inexpensive local calls and receive international calls for free. You will need a GSM phone that is unlocked. Most carriers will lock your phone for the duration of your contract so that you cannot use another carrier. If you are unsure whether your phone has been unblocked, it is likely still blocked. One way to check is by putting a friend's SIM card in to see if it functions. If you do not have a GSM phone or are unable to unlock yours you can buy one at Telestial. They will tell you exactly what you need for the countries you are planning to visit.

It’s easy to find a SIM card for your cell phone in Antigua, just make sure that your phone is compatible for accepting foreign cards.  There are two companies that make SIM cards:  PCS or Telefonica.  The main differences are that a PCS card generally gets better service in more remote areas of Guatemala and the same card can also be used in El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua.  On the other hand, Telefonica is cheaper to make calls to the US.  Both companies charge Q1 per minute for calls within Guatemala but Telefonica only charges Q1 per minute (about 12cents) to call the US while PCS charges Q4 (about 50 cents).    

At Telgua, the local phone company, you can buy a PCS card for Q100 and it comes with Q75 of air time.  Telgua is located half a block south of the central park on 5th Avenida (the arch street).  

You can buy either a PCS card or a Telefonica card at the Bodegona grocery store.  To get there from the central park, walk west on 5th calle and it is just before the Calzada Santa Lucia (the paved road where the buses pass).  The PCS card at the Bodegona costs Q175 with Q75 airtime and the Telefonica card costs Q150 with Q80 airtime already on it.  

Once you buy the SIM card you can buy prepaid cards to refill your airtime at many tiendas around town or back at the Bodegona.  Sometimes the companies have “doble saldo” days where you get double the amount of money for any card you put on your phone tab that day.  You should get a text message or you can ask in the Bodegona—they usually have a sign announcing it there. 

For those of you who aren't too excited about the idea of trying to communicate all of these requirements in Spanish, you can buy pre-paid SIM cards for Guatemala before you go from Telestial.

Skype is another excellent way of keeping in touch while you are on the road. Skype's Internet telephony solutions allow you to talk to your friends and family for free. With 33 million active users, you will be able to find new people to keep in touch with too! More and more internet cafes in Guatemala are starting to download Skype's software to their computers so that all you have to do is log into your account and you can immediatey get in touch with all of your contacts. Skype also allows you to make outgoing calls to landlines and cell phones (a service you pay for, but at much lower rates than the alternatives) as well as use its instant messaging feature. Skype lets you make free calls over the Internet. It's free to download and you can add on voicemail for a small fee.