sartellite phone - mountains of albania montenegro and kosovo

If I was to venture outside areas of good mobile phone coverage I might be looking at http://inreachdelorme.com/product-info/inreachse.php . It only provides text messaging capability, but is a lot cheaper than a full-blown satellite phone, both in initial and running costs. It is based on the Iridium satellite constellation which means that it will work all over the world, including the polar regions.

Edited by: madsb

I use www.findmespot.com again, it's not a sat phone, but it can track and you can send txt msg with your location.

satellite phone that will work in remote areas of these three countries?

satellite phones ...

depends on what satellites your equipment will be trying to connect to ... you can pick up coverage almost anywhere

see also
https://www.google.com/search?q=satellite<i>phone+world</i>map&biw=1600&bih=712&sei=k-gSUrXpDIzNkQW26oDoBA&tbm=isch

Great suggestion re INREACH. THANKS (we also heard good things about find me spot but got in reach)
Do you know if you can carry a power cell phone charger to use to charge this up ?
Can you charge using any usb source?

The Spot was quite attractive when it arrived, but a little later came the Iridium based competitors and the Spot only provides one-way messaging. Also, it doesn't cover all of the planet. The Inreach (and other Iridium based devices) provides two-way messaging for a similar price. Because of these factors I would also choose InReach or another Iridium based device.

The InReach SE manual (http://support.delorme.com/WebHelp/inreachse/#inreach) says that it charges from USB, so I would assume that a portable USB charging device would be able to charge it.

The screenless InReach (non SE) uses AA batteries which might make it easier to keep it powered since you can just bring a huge stash of AA batteries. On the other hand you will need to keep a smartphone charged and dry to receive messages on this device or to send anything but SOS or three predefined messages. Still, if you want to use it primarily for tracking and the ability to push the SOS button, the non SE version might be preferable due to its use of AA batteries.

Edited by: madsb