How do you make calls and use data when traveling to Europe?

[Corporateburnout]

We have never had extra charges come anywhere close to what we would pay ATT for expanded or international service. Those don’t make calls/data free, just cheaper. Use WiFi when available, which is pretty much all over. I use a free app called Ulsan CityMaps2Go which gives me great directions on pre-downloaded countries and cities without using cellular date.

I Pay AT&T $10 per day for unlimited text, calls, and current domestic plan for data. I have 12G data plan which is plenty when not on WiFi.

This plan covers 100 countries.

 

[audreyh1]

To the "buying SIMs got old fast" group, if you go the tether route, the only thing that might get old is keeping two phones charged. But since the screen is almost always off on the CEP, it's battery lasts twice as long as my regular phone that I'm using for maps and looking up stuff.

Well - I just use my same old phone, same SIM. International coverage is already included as standard in my plan. 200+ countries are covered.

 

[mageedge]

$10/day sounds expensive when you can buy a local SIM in Europe that will give you 1gb of data (or more) for the same price. One blogger in Greece recently got 10gb of data for 8 Euros.
If you are uncomfortable getting a SIM locally there are a variety of options in the US - Amazon is advertising a Three (UK mobile company) 1GB card for $12.59. These cards are good for 30 days and you can re-stock data if needed.
Recent EU law changes mean country specific cards will work anywhere in the Union without extra roaming charges.
If you set up a Google Voice account you can forward your Verizon number calls to GV. Use the Hangouts app on your phone to send/receive GV calls/texts. Use wifi where available or the data plan if you're "out and about".

 

[Retired Expat]

Try Magic Jack

For the OP or anyone spending an extended period overseas I highly recommend a Magic Jack. Even if you just travel a lot too

You plug it into the router where you are staying and plug a phone into it. All calls now to it from the US are as it yo s US number, and from it back to the states are free. Voice messages are sent to your email as Wav attachments.

I retired out side the US and keep a T-mobile account but free data at 2G doesn’t work for most things or browsing or VoIP but is fine for email, WhatsApp texting etc.

Magic Jack app allows you to call or receive calls to your celll same as if you were home provided you have a high speed WiFi connection. One $25 payment per year is all it costs. In my home it is simple a 2nd line that we use to keep in touch with friends and family in the US and Canada. Works great!

 

[Scuba]

I went through a couple of years of buying SIMS over there, and that got old fast.

[-]If Verizon has a reasonable temp solution for $10, that's cheaper than dealing with a SIM if it includes some data and text as well as calls.[/-]Ooops - sorry forgot that was $10 PER DAY if used. What about data and texting?

The $10/day Verizon plan gives us the same service as our domestic plan. In our case, we get unlimited calling and texting and 8G of data each month. Unused data rolls over for future use.

 

[Scuba]

Wow - several interesting ideas here, thank you all! DH is the techie in our family so I am going to forward this thread to him and see what he decides.

We did check out the TMobile plan for $60/month for two lines but decided against it at the time for a few reasons. They said we’d have to get new phones as our iPhone 6’s wouldn’t get good reception with their newer technology. Also TMobile has almost no coverage in the Caribbean where we spend a fair bit of time. And they don’t allow you to go beyond 2 lines for a nominal cost, whereas Verizon allowed us to add lines for cellular enabled iPads for $10/month extra per device. The TMobile plan for 4 devices was going to be more expensive than our Verizon plan, plus getting new phones wasn’t necessary for us with Verizon. YMMV

 

[Lagniappe]

Wow - several interesting ideas here, thank you all! DH is the techie in our family so I am going to forward this thread to him and see what he decides.

We did check out the TMobile plan for $60/month for two lines but decided against it at the time for a few reasons. They said we’d have to get new phones as our iPhone 6’s wouldn’t get good reception with their newer technology. Also TMobile has almost no coverage in the Caribbean where we spend a fair bit of time. And they don’t allow you to go beyond 2 lines for a nominal cost, whereas Verizon allowed us to add lines for cellular enabled iPads for $10/month extra per device. The TMobile plan for 4 devices was going to be more expensive than our Verizon plan, plus getting new phones wasn’t necessary for us with Verizon. YMMV

Could you simply use your phone as a Hotspot and connect your iPad that way?

I have been in Spain for the last two months, and the T-mobile plan, using wifi calling has worked great. I have only had to use my phone as a Hotspot once, when wifi was unreliable.

 

[Scuba]

Could you simply use your phone as a Hotspot and connect your iPad that way?

I have been in Spain for the last two months, and the T-mobile plan, using wifi calling has worked great. I have only had to use my phone as a Hotspot once, when wifi was unreliable.

Yes I could, but I like the idea of being able to independently use my iPad, and for $10/month, it works well for me.

 

[marko]

I Pay AT&T $10 per day for unlimited text, calls, and current domestic plan for data. I have 12G data plan which is plenty when not on WiFi.

This plan covers 100 countries.

Asking: Is that so in all of the EU? Having lived in Europe I was always leery of roaming charges with my US phone but what you're saying sounds like things have improved.

Do you just turn on the phone and get an offer from ATT to sign up? $10 a day for a few days would sure be better than running around looking for a WiFi connection.

 

[audreyh1]

The $10/day Verizon plan gives us the same service as our domestic plan. In our case, we get unlimited calling and texting and 8G of data each month. Unused data rolls over for future use.

If you use text or cell data on a given day overseas are you charged $10?

 

[audreyh1]

Could you simply use your phone as a Hotspot and connect your iPad that way?

That’s what I do. I got a newer iPad when Best Buy had a screamer deal on non-cell data models. Now I just tether it to my phone when needed. Works great.

 

[Corporateburnout]

Asking: Is that so in all of the EU? Having lived in Europe I was always leery of roaming charges with my US phone but what you're saying sounds like things have improved.

Do you just turn on the phone and get an offer from ATT to sign up? $10 a day for a few days would sure be better than running around looking for a WiFi connection.

They sure have improved. The plan covers about 100 countries including all of the EU. I've used it in France and in Canada.

I set it up online before I go or you can call customer service. AT&T will only charge your account for the days you use it. But be aware that some Apps work in the background and will use data if you don't disable them so you will be charged the fee even if you didn't call, text or use data.

 

[Bestwifeever]

If you use text or cell data on a given day overseas are you charged $10?

Yes—only for the day you use it. Whether it’s a single text or 24 hours talking on the phone (or searching for a location in Germany near the Czech border).

I think we all remember hearing of people who returned home to $2k phone bills back in the day because their phones weren’t turned off or their kids called their friends, etc. I don’t mind the $10 any day you need it option.

 

[sengsational]

Well - I just use my same old phone, same SIM. International coverage is already included as standard in my plan. 200+ countries are covered.

My regular phone plan is $20/mo with unlimited talk, text and 2GB, but doesn't include a lick of anything outside the US, nor the option to add it.

Yes. Even with cell data service, there are area in places like mountains, cities, boondocks, etc. where Google Maps, etc. can't get data. We have used Copilot Live (https://copilotgps.com/en-gb/) very successfully. Maps can be bought for most first world countries and downloaded to the phone or tablet. Third world coverage (Ethiopia, Vietnam, Myanmar, ... ) is marginal though.

Lately (and this includes my trip last month), Google maps has asked me if I'd like to download the map in case of spotty cell coverage. This question comes when you put in a destination and it picks a route for you. You say 'yes' and it takes care of it transparently. Also, before I left home, I saved "offline maps", also using Google maps, for areas I knew I'd be. I'm not sure those are quite as detailed as the ones created when it picks a route, but would have been good enough for most uses...probably more detailed than the huge paper map that I only unfolded in the comfort of the hotel room to mark where I'd been that day.

 

[bmcgonig]

+1

Project Fi covers something like 140 countries. Data is flat rated and phone time is either free (Canada) or ten, maybe twenty cents a minute depending on their local deal. No screwing with SIM cards. In January I easily made a call home from the transit lounge in Seoul, a brief stop where I never would have bought a SIM card.

Domestically it is nice too for those of us who use limited data because the $10/GB is the rate but you pay only for what you use. I have had months where my data charge was under $1. Almost always it is under $2.

One issue with Fi. If your phone breaks or is lost while out of US, you can't just locally buy a phone. One problem is that the phone must be an American version of the model. Second is that the phone can only be activated in the US.

Ask me how I know this...[emoji4]

Other than that it beats them all for traveling. Cheaper and faster speeds internationally.

 

[oldphd]

The $10/day Verizon plan gives us the same service as our domestic plan. In our case, we get unlimited calling and texting and 8G of data each month. Unused data rolls over for future use.

There is another Verizon option. It's $40/month but instead of using your allotment you get 100M of data, 100 minutes of calling, unlimited incoming texts, and some number of outgoing (100?). Start date is whenever you pick (we were actually gone for 31 days so we had one phone start on day 1 and one on day 2 so we wouldn't be without or pay for a second month). Go over these amounts and it's pay as you go, including $25/100M of data. Probably should double check these numbers since I'm pulling them out of my memory from a couple of months ago.

We just went to Europe for a month. Felt that up to $600 for the two of us seemed like a lot of money. We have a low level of data on our plan, rely on Wifi and aren't heavy data users, shoot, not heavy phone users. We turned off all the data updates, e-mail, application updates, etc. Then only did those things on Wifi. We would selectively turn on data for something particular if needed when out and about. I wanted to be able to get incoming texts related to credit card usage (we recently had one of our card numbers stolen, didn't want one getting suspended on us over there).

Neither of us could stay under the 100M of data, though my wife was close and I think except for one oops related to instagram she'd have made it. Particularly wanted to be able to use it for maps and finding our way around. Note that you can get on google maps once in a new location to get the map updated (either wifi or cell), and then turn it off. But the GPS keeps working, so you aren't using data.

I will say that about 50M of data each was going to "system" functions that we couldn't turn off. So at the end of the month we had them always available, but sparsely used on cell data, and did it for $130 for 2 phones.

On a semi-related note... two of our weeks were on a ship going from England to Russia and back, think it was 8 times we changed time zones by an hour. The ship had... "ship time" which didn't always agree with the actual time zone. While most times our phone picked up GPS and updated to the actual time zone, once it didn't until we arrived. Keep this in mind when using your phone alarm in the morning if you need to get up! And keep a second time (we used our kindles which are manually set). First time this happened we were getting up and weren't sure if our phone had changed or not.

 

[marko]

For the OP or anyone spending an extended period overseas I highly recommend a Magic Jack. Even if you just travel a lot too

You plug it into the router where you are staying and plug a phone into it. All calls now to it from the US are as it yo s US number, and from it back to the states are free. Voice messages are sent to your email as Wav attachments.

I retired out side the US and keep a T-mobile account but free data at 2G doesn’t work for most things or browsing or VoIP but is fine for email, WhatsApp texting etc.

Magic Jack app allows you to call or receive calls to your celll same as if you were home provided you have a high speed WiFi connection. One $25 payment per year is all it costs. In my home it is simple a 2nd line that we use to keep in touch with friends and family in the US and Canada. Works great!

This is great for extended stays where you can access the router. We used Vonage when we lived in France. Folks back home can dial a local number and it worked right out of the box.
Not useful for hotel stays however.

 

[Retired Expat]

This is great for extended stays where you can access the router. We used Vonage when we lived in France. Folks back home can dial a local number and it worked right out of the box.
Not useful for hotel stays however.

Magic Jack works in hotels where you have WiFi as you access it through your smart phone and their app. It also works with the magic jack device if you have your laptop with you.

Also I don’t see much mention of the Apple sim feature that lets you connect to a foreign carrier with your iPad and create a hotspot your phones can use.. this option also works great and is immediate without having to go buy a sim.

Another option for you folks with a phone with built in GPS (not all have it) is to download the HERE map app and then download the maps for the area, state, country etc. you will be in and tell the app to work offline. Uses zero data but there is no traffic or searching for sites it may not have in it’s database.

 

[shortstop14]

I found myself way too cheap on a long trip to turn on the Verizon $10 data plan each day when I was in a location, just using it on travel days - once in a city I used WiFi and offline maps. And then I was annoyed by not having it - I find Google Maps especially useful in cities with transit options, because it will show current up-to-the-minute schedules and stops - but that didn't work with the data turned off for the day.


The 55+ T-Mobile plan has worked much better for us - but just two of us, and T-Mobile service in our home area is pretty good. With that plan, both of us can use our phones seamlessly when traveling. We don't do many voice calls, so the charge for voice doesn't affect us much.

 

[audreyh1]

Also I don’t see much mention of the Apple sim feature that lets you connect to a foreign carrier with your iPad and create a hotspot your phones can use.. this option also works great and is immediate without having to go buy a sim.

I do it the other way around and now use a SIMless iPad with an iPhone hotspot.

 

[Scuba]

If you use text or cell data on a given day overseas are you charged $10?

Yes

 

[l2ridehd]

There is an app I have used. Viber It allows wifi calling to anyone else with the Viber app. I have used it to call from many different countries with no charges. You can set up a viber group if traveling with others and use calling, text, group text, and works when anyone has wifi connection.

 

[marko]

Magic Jack works in hotels where you have WiFi as you access it through your smart phone and their app. It also works with the magic jack device if you have your laptop .

I did not know that.
Thanks for the tip!

 

[Corporateburnout]

There is an app I have used. Viber It allows wifi calling to anyone else with the Viber app. I have used it to call from many different countries with no charges. You can set up a viber group if traveling with others and use calling, text, group text, and works when anyone has wifi connection.

WhatsApp is more popular than Viber. I found that most of my contacts have this App on their phones so I'm able to communicate with them when I'm on WiFi while traveling.

 

[deserat]

Turn off data and use wifi only. If I really needed to take a call and there was no wifi I could turn it on and depending on the country it is $5 to $10 per 24 hour period commencing when one makes first contact. Up to a maximum of the total for 5 24 hour periods in a calendar month.

Ditto - I use wifi and email. When I had a fully loaded AT&T plan, I would tun on the international for texting, etc for $30/mo.

I used to have an Aldi Talk sim card and burner phone, but if I didn't return to Europe within 6 mo, the sim card 'stopped.'

That Google Fi looks like a decent option.