OT...Chazz, how do you use your phone when you travel out of the US and in these other countries? Do you buy and use international/local SIM cards or use plans put in place by your carrier? I'm flying this weekend to London for a couple of weeks and am unsure which is the best way to do this.
Thx.
Last time we went to Brazil (3 years ago), we still had our Moto Quarks. Because my wife doesn't want to spend time in cell phone stores trying to buy local SIMs and her having to translate for me, instead I bought two
"business traveler" SIM cards off a website. Was guaranteed to work in like 80 different countries (including U.S. and Brazil), and they have agreements with local carriers in all those countries. Here in the U.S. they use AT&T.
So, I was able to activate the SIM cards HERE and try them out on our phones, double check the APN settings, etc before going to Brazil. (Be careful when doing that as some of the cards are only good for two weeks; ours were good for a month. I didn't test them until a week or so away from our trip.) I then put our "regular" SIM cards back in our phones until we got on the plane to Brazil. During the flight, I put the "business traveler" SIM cards in and when we landed, we had cell phone signal through a local carrier.
I think I used this website, or something very similar:
https://www.mrsimcard.com/s-travelsim.html
For you going to London, on that page see the
TravelSim Classic COMBO EU package (2nd choice):
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TravelSim Classic COMBO EU package
Period 14/dy Plan
VOLUME DATA
1GB 4G
Talk / Text + International Cost
FREE incoming Calls / Text + 100 Mins + 100 SMS
$25
(However on that plan you would have to activate when you got to Europe, as it's only for Eurpe -- which is OK as long as you know. I got one that included South America and U.S.)
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OR do Ctrl + F to search on that web page for "United Kingdom" to see the various packages and compare between them.
I noticed as we traveled around the country it would change to various carriers. Sometime Oi, sometimes TIM, etc -- I guess depending on who had best coverage in that area. Brazil is as large as the continental U.S., just turned sideways. Sao Paulo city is larger than New York city.
The SIM cards I bought were good for 30 days, but you can buy others that are good for 2 weeks. Just depends on what you need. In the two weeks we were there, I almost ran out of data on my card. I could have just bought more through the website, but instead I just swapped SIM cards with my wife. Ha!
To be clear, this option was more for convenience and peace of mind than just pure cost. A local SIM card is always cheaper -- but I was able to TEST this out before I left the U.S. and I knew when we landed our phones would be working. I was able to call my sister back here in the U.S. from the airport to let her know we arrived safely. Texts also worked.
I have Google Voice and basically just needed a data connection for phone calls and texts -- but these SIM cards also provide a separate phone number. Unlike international carrier roaming charges, I knew EXACTLY what the cost was and paid it in advance. If you need more data, you
can purchase more.
