If you have an American phone that you want to take abroad you are certainly going to be able to do so. These days most of the American wireless service providers have plans and ways to ensure that you will have coverage in Europe. Of course, the easiest way to get that coverage is to pay the roaming fees or the daily international pass. Especially if you are headed to some of the more “famous” cities in Europe. Of course, paying the daily pass is going to usually mean that you can rack up a huge bill at the end of the month. Most of the times that daily pass costs around 10 dollars a day. Plus, the regular fee that you would have to pay. If you don’t have a local unlimited plan this can be a nightmare. For a 2 week stay in Europe, you could easily rack up over 200 dollars worth of phone fees.
Having said all of this, of course, the goal of this article is to go through some of the options that you are going to have. To ensure that you will not only get coverage abroad but also pay a reasonable fee for that particular coverage. The easy answer would be to go out and buy a foreign SIM card these can get a little bit tricky though. Especially those SIM cards that have expiration dates. Also, we want to make sure that we give you some tips and tricks to make sure you can get the most out of the SIM card or plan that you buy.
- Paying the international daily fee
- Getting a local European SIM card
- Where you travel really matters
- Gadgets for your phone in Europe
- Is it better to have an iPhone or Android phone in Europe
- How much can I expect to pay with each method
- Texting while on the trip
Paying the international daily fee
This is something that a lot of people want to avoid hence, the SIM card option. That being said, if you were to just go to Europe and back for around two or three days just paying the daily international fee which is around 10 dollars in most American service providers could make sense. There is a catch even in these situations though. You are going to be paying ten dollars a day with these international plans. If you want to use an American plan and phone in Europe there is no way around that. You may not be getting the best coverage either. For the most part, the coverage that you would get on these plans will be sub-par at the very least.
After stating what was just stated, do we believe that paying the international fee is worth it? It could be worth it in very limited situations. As was mentioned before, if you are going to be abroad for only a couple of days and you can mix and match wifi with just a little bit of data time it can make sense. It can set you back 20 or 30 dollars. The thing is, you are not going to have to worry about getting a SIM card and making sure it fits your phone. Comparing and contrasting coverages, and costs for these foreign SIM cards may take some time. You are essentially taking that out of the equation if you decide to just pay the fee. It is certainly can make some things a bit easier. If you are not a big tech person the whole remove a SIM card add an eSIM process can be quite much. As was mentioned before, there may be scenarios where paying the international fee for your phone in Europe could make sense. Those scenarios are certainly limited.
Getting a local European SIM card
For longer trips, this is what is going to make the most sense. That does not mean that you should just go ahead and buy the first SIM card that you happen to come across. This is one of those purchases that if you do it with good backing you are really going to see the reward. There are a couple of things that you should be keeping in mind before you buy a SIM card. One of the first mistakes is to think that one SIM card is going to be giving you coverage all over Europe. While that could be the case, that is not always the case. For example, there are many companies that are going to offer you UK coverage, but if you step into a France you’ll lose the coverage. Making sure that you know where you will get coverage from each provider is a must. Ideally, you will be able to buy one SIM card that has you covered for your entire trip.
Another one of these things that you should probably be keeping an eye on is how long a certain card is valid. Now, in most cards, you are going to be able to recharge them without having to buy a new SIM card and getting a new number. With that said some of them offer things like 500MB of data for around 15 to 20 dollars. The problem is the data will expire within 4 days whether you use it up or not! These are some of the “scammy” ways that certain companies want to take advantage of tourists. It is certainly something that you should keep in mind. The tip in itself is to make sure that you know what you are buying. If you are going to a country where you are not familiar with the native language may be the best idea is to buy that SIM card online. Just so you know exactly what you are buying. Hopefully, you will get the Best Europe Sim Card
Where you travel really matters
This is one of the main talking points throughout the whole site. As was mentioned before one of the issues that you may face is that a certain SIM card won’t give you coverage in a particular country. A perfect example of this is some of the UK based companies. Some of them are only going to be offering coverage within the UK. This is not to say that you should just stay away from UK based companies if you are taking an extensive Europe trip. Again, it is more of a warning to just say make sure you know what you are buying. Make sure that you are able to obtain coverage in all of the countries that you are going to be visiting.
Gadgets for your phone in Europe
These are not things that you need to buy. They could though, make your life a lot easier. In many other articles on the site, we have talked about how when you travel to Europe you need a voltage converter. If you are going to make trips across the pond quite a bit or you are going to be in Europe for a considerable amount of time there are a couple of things that you could consider. Number one would be to buy a high-quality voltage converter. These high-quality converters could set you back may be up to 100 dollars. Compared to the up to maybe 5 dollars that you would pay for a cheaper version of the same thing. What is the difference besides the price? The thing is the cheap version tends to burn out fairly quickly. Especially if you are thinking about using them to charge your phone, tablet, and laptop. It is no secret that these days we carry around more gadgets maybe than we ever have. Using one cheap converter to charge all of those things every night is just not doable.
Another thing that could be worth the investment is picking up a charger that works on local voltage. Usually picking a phone charger is going to be easier and less expensive than it will be to find a laptop charger for example. It could make sense to lighten the load for your voltage converter. One of the things though that we always like to point out is that these cheap voltage converters also seem to fail at the worst possible time. You may not need to buy the 100 dollar version. There are decent converters that you could get for around 30 to 35 dollars. If you are going on a relatively long Euro trip these can be real lifesavers. It is not just about being able to charge your own gadgets. It is also a way to make sure that your phone, laptop, or even hairdryer won’t burn out because of the voltage difference. Take this seriously, this is something that can and does happen!
Is it better to have an iPhone or Android phone in Europe
There are a couple of reasons why it may be a bit easier to have an Android phone in Europe. Number one is the fact that it is going to be easier for you to be able to find a SIM card that fits your phone. All of the compatibility issues are just made easier with an Android. If you had the chance to go out and buy a charger, for example, it is going to be way easier for you to be able to buy a local Android charger. Any gadgets that you may need to buy are going to tend to be less expensive. Therefore, if you happen to be on a budget then definitely, Android is the operating system that you are going to want to look at. If you have plans to buy a travel phone that would be different from your regular phone it would not make a lot of sense to buy a travel iPhone. You are going to be able to get an Android phone at a lower price pretty much no matter how you look at it.
Having said all of this, if you have an iPhone and you are going to Europe that doesn’t mean that you should leave your phone at home. There are actually many benefits, especially with some of the newer iPhone versions. Dual sim capability is basically standard now in most newer iPhones. That is not something that you are going to be able to find across the board with Android. This is going to make your life a bit easier. Since you are not going to have manually be switching SIM cards out. There are ways to make sure that each type of phone can work well while in Europe.
How much can I expect to pay with each method?
How much money can you realistically expect to spend on phone coverage while in Europe? Well, let’s take a look at the two main options that you are going to have. If you want to stick with the coverage that you get from your regular plan the best thing that you can do is to pay the daily travel fee. You have to make sure that this fee is active. Otherwise, you could be spending a lot of money on roaming fees. This option works well if you have a local unlimited plan since you are still going to be able to use data as you please for 10 dollars. The main issue that you are going to have though is the fact that you can’t expect the same type of speed that you will get locally. Kiss 5G speeds goodbye with this method at least for now.
As far as the cost goes it really depends on how much time you are spending abroad. With T-Mobile and Verizon you are going to be paying 10 dollars a day. If you are on a two-week trip you can expect to be spending around 150 dollars per line on your trip. If you have Sprint you can actually get a week of coverage for 50 dollars. So that could actually save you around 40 to 50 dollars.
The other method is, of course, to go out and buy a local SIM card. In this case, it is hard to pinpoint the actual cost. Since it is really going to depend on the amount of data that you think you will need. You can expect to spend around 25 dollars for some of the more basic low data options. All the up to 40 to 50 dollars for 20GB of coverage and over 100 call minutes. These SIM cards are going to be valid for 30 days. Make sure that you check the expiration date on some of these cards. There are some SIM cards out there that seem great, but they are only active for 3 to 5 days. If you are on a longer trip it is better to buy a card that is basically a monthly prepaid plan.
Texting while on the trip
If you are looking to text while in Europe there are different things that you are going to need to keep in mind. If you happen to have an unlimited plan and you pay the international fee you could potential text as you normally would. There could be certain delays in the system. Just because of the fact that you are not going to be getting the best coverage. Other than that, everything pretty much stays the same.
On the other hand, if you go the route of buying a SIM card then you really should start counting your texts. For the most, the “medium” tier plans are going to give you around 200 text messages. These can get used up fairly quickly if you are an avid texter. Also, you would have to text from that local phone number even with a dual SIM phone. Meaning that, the person that you text may not know it’s you unless you give them a heads up. Another option that you could potentially have is to go ahead and use an app to be able to text. If you go that route, there are a whole set of things that you are going to need to consider. We have other articles on the site that cover the topic. Therefore, we are not going to spend too much time on those things here.
Overall Recap of Using Your Phone in Europe
There are many different ways that you could potentially use your phone in Europe. These different methods come with different price tags and ways to operate. At the end of the day, it really depends on what your particular trip looks like and what your typical phone usage is. If you need more minutes then, getting a local SIM card can be the way to go. If you want to cut your costs down while using data make sure to connect to wifi connection whenever you can. You can actually take your phone and just do that if you would want to. As was mentioned before there are a lot of different avenues that you could potentially take. Hopefully, we helped you find the right one.