One of the basic things that you are probably going to have to do when you travel abroad and you want cel coverage is to insert an international SIM card into your phone. If you have read some of the other articles that we have on the site you know quite a bit about international SIM cards already. Yet, a lot of times they are not as easy to just plug in and use as it may seem. Also, some of the ways that these cards are being sold can confuse some people. Therefore, it is essentially our duty to talk about some of the things that you have to watch out for when you buy an international SIM card. The first piece of advice that we could throw out there is to not just base your decision on a price tag.
It is always great when you can get a good deal on anything. Yet, there are different things that you could potentially consider before you buy. What we have seen happen a lot is that people have trouble activating the foreign SIM card. Also, they are not able to get the type of coverage that they expect when they buy the card. Part of this has to do with the type of usage that each person has of their phones. There are people that call more, people that text more and people who just need data, and they will be fine. Figuring out what type of use you give your own phone can go a long way in making sure that you pick the right SIM card. Having said this, these are the topics that we are going to cover in this article.
- What area does the SIM card cover
- What are you getting out of this SIM card
- How much can you expect to spend on a SIM card
- Is it a good idea to put the international SIM card on your regular phone?
- Will the SIM card still be active for the next time that I travel?
- Best brands to buy international SIM cards from
What area does the SIM card cover
This is something that is super important and can’t be understated. Especially if you are traveling to Europe. There are a lot of companies that will tell you they have got you covered in the entire European continent. Yet, if you read the fine print they exclude certain countries from their coverage. With the whole Brexit ordeal there is a good chance that you may have to pay for another SIM card if you are traveling to the UK as well as other parts of Europe. The reason this is so important is to make sure that you can get a clear idea of how much you could potentially be spending on your mobile coverage abroad. If you have to buy essentially two different SIM cards to get your through 2 weeks, there is a chance that you could be better off paying the international day fee from your regular service provider.
Another example is traveling across South America and Mexico. If you have a Mexican sim card don’t expect it to work for other countries in Central and South America. In South America even though, small countries that border each other could look very similar you may not be getting coverage everywhere with the same SIM card. This is something that we just cannot state enough. At the end of the day, you probably have a budget that you want to stick to. The best way to really have an idea of what service is going to cost is to make sure that you know where you are getting coverage. Also, there is a chance that certain remote locations in some countries will see you without coverage even if you buy a local SIM card. If you are planning to go to Machu Pichu in Peru, you may not be getting the best coverage in the ruin area even with a local SIM card.
What are you getting out of this SIM card
Another thing that you absolutely need to consider before just going out and buying a local SIM card is the type of coverage that you are looking for. The question that you would probably need to ask yourself is what do you use your phone for the most? Many years ago the answer was easy. You use, a phone to make calls so what you need are minutes. These days calls are mostly an afterthought for a lot of folks. What you are looking for is data. Data is the most prized possession these days for mobile phone users. Naturally, the plans with the most data are the most expensive.
Most of the time when we talk about buying a foreign SIM card these work like a prepaid or pay as you go plan. You buy the card itself and that card comes with a limited amount of minutes, data, texts, and all of those things. If you run out you are going to be able to recharge at a local store. Without having to go out and buy another SIM card to insert into your phone. This means that if you screwed up with the coverage that you got the first time around you shouldn’t have to worry too much. Once you recharge you would get another chance to figure out what it is that you are going to be using the most.
How much can you expect to spend on a SIM card
When you are looking for an international SIM card to use while you are abroad you may be surprised to find out about all of the different prices that you could potentially find. If you are going to Europe you can find SIM cards for as low as 20 or 30 dollars. If you start digging deeper you can find ways to spend 50 or up to almost 100 dollars for 30 days on a SIM card. As far as prices go there are two main things that you need to watch out for. One of those things is validity. This means the number of days that your card is going to be active from the time that you buy it. A lot of people get tricked by this. Yet, this is something that we want to go over in great depth in a later paragraph.
Moving on then to the second thing that you are going to need to keep in mind, which is, area of coverage. This another one of those things that we talked about. This is actually a bit hard to determine. Most SIM cards will say that they offer coverage all throughout Europe for example or Asia. In the fine print though, you may find that in some countries you are only going to be getting minimal speeds. Therefore, we could add an extra issue that you would have to look into. Does the SIM card offer the same speed throughout each territory? Most of the times the answer is no. So, it is something that is worth at the very least a second look!
Payment Options
If you buy a SIM card with a short validity and you need to recharge it essentially you may want to pay attention to the payment options that are offered by the SIM card provider. In a weird turn of events, someone at a famous UK mobile service provider decided that it would be a good idea to only accept local UK credit cards to be able to add minutes or data to your prepaid plan.
If you go with that company, Three UK, you won’t be able to pay an extra fee for more days or more data. The same thing is probably going to happen with an O2 SIM card. If you are not a UK citizen you are not going to be able to add more data via a credit card unless you happen to be in the Czech Republic. Many of these SIM cards have their own little nuances it is a good idea to scope them out before you just take the cheapest price on the market.
Is it a good idea to put the international SIM card on your regular phone?
This is one of those debates that we have sort of had on the site but at the same time kind of wanted to avoid. If you have read through some of the other articles on the site you know that we tend to recommend having a travel phone if you are an avid traveler. It is going to help keep your personal information intact. It is also going to ensure that you won’t be at risk of being held liable for roaming fees. To be honest this is one of the biggest fears that we have with dual SIM phones. With dual SIM phones, it would seem like a no brainer that you could go ahead and just add another SIM to your same phone. Otherwise, why would this feature even exist? The argument we tend to make is that this is a great feature for people who are very meticulous and now what is going on at all times.
The biggest fear is to have your regular SIM active when it is not supposed to and getting hit pretty hard with roaming fees because of this mistake. If you think that it is no big deal and you are going to be able to keep an eye on your phone to make sure that you are getting coverage from the right SIM at all times then it is a great idea. Would we recommend removing your regular SIM and putting in a new international SIM card? If you have backed-up all of the data that you have on your phone it should not be a major issue. One of the things that we always warn against is potential data loss. Also, making sure that your phone is properly unlocked. Otherwise, you won’t be able to get a foreign SIM card to work. Yet, you could still lose the data.
It may seem like we generally would advise against doing this. Yet, in a lot of ways, it makes things more simple. You either install the new international SIM card in your dual SIM phone or you do a SIM switch and you are done. You just need to make sure that you account for all of the little things that could come back to bite you. Helping you avoid those little things that could come back to bite you is essentially the reining idea behind this entire site!
Will the international SIM card still be active for the next time that I travel?
There are actually two answers to this question. It depends on which foreign SIM card you buy and it depends on when the next time you travel happens to be. You can have SIM cards that will stay active for about a year. If you return home, but then come back and pay for more data or minutes you are going to be able to use the same foreign SIM card. There are other cards that are only valid for the next 14 days! So, these cards are actually good for shorter trips. You won’t have to really worry about keeping track of the card after you are done.
One of the things though, that we would like to point out is that it may be a good idea to have at least a validity of 30 days. Sure, some of the SIM cards with lower validity will end up being cheaper. That is obviously one of the reasons that certain people tend to flock towards them. If you are going on a 14 or 12-day trip and anything happens you may want to have those extra days of coverage just in case. This pretty much ties in with what we mentioned earlier about not just rushing for the cheapest international SIM card that you can find. There is usually a pretty good reason as to why they happen to be cheap!
Best brands to buy international SIM cards from
We can’t really find a simple answer to this question. Obviously, it is going to depend on where you are traveling. If you are traveling to Europe for example, Orange has some of the best options out there. It also has a pretty decent network. Of course, there are other options out there that could potentially be cheaper. Once again, a lot of times you should probably be asking yourself why these SIM cards happen to be cheap. There is usually a reason behind it. One of the main reasons is that they just don’t have a great network. So even though they are advertising the fact that you could potentially get coverage in many different countries that does not mean that again you should even consider some brands. When traveling to Europe the UK based brands suffer from this a lot. They can provide good coverage in her majesty’s realm. Yet, the coverage that you will get in the rest of Europe may not be top-notch
As far as Mexico, Central and South America go your best bet may be to go with a foreign SIM card from any company that is owned and operated by America Movil. This is going to be companies like Telcel, and Claro. They may not have the best prices around. Yet, for the most part, they have the best coverage of any other company out there. Therefore, it just a good bet to maybe spend a couple more dollars, yet end up with a phone that does work all over the place.
As far as Asia goes it is hard to obviously point out one brand. The Chinese mainland is different from Hong Kong and obviously a lot of the countries in the region have their own companies that you could potentially trust. We are going to do a separate article to cover some of the best options that you could have down the road. So that we can compare and contrast the options that are out there.
Steps To Pick An International SIM Card
As you can probably see by now, there are a lot of things that you should consider before purchasing any SIM card. The first thing is having a clear idea of where you are going and for how long. If you can have a budget of how much you are willing to spend that can really help. From there, pick a foreign SIM card that covers your most immediate needs. Are you looking to get more minutes, text, data? Last but not least make sure that the company you are buying from has decent coverage in the area that you are traveling to. This can really help you avoid thinking that you overpaid or that you should have gone with another brand that may be offered better coverage in a particular area.