Over the last 3 years, I've travelled to London (with side trips to
Cambridge & Bath), Paris, Italy, Greece, Austria, Switzerland & Germany. In
my experience, free wifi is very hard to come by. Even those places that
have it may require you to register but you can't because you have to have a
local phone # to do so. Out of all the places, England was the easiest. I
walked into a t-mobile store in Bath and got a local sim for $10 for the
week. It had unlimited internet and some minutes (don't remember how many).
Since I had my kids with me, I didn't expect any incoming calls - I would be
making all the calls back home, so having a local # was not an issue for me.
In Paris, my hotel had free wifi so I used skype to make calls. The other
countries were harder 1) because of the language barrier - I don't speak the
languages and most of the store workers in the mobile stores did not speak
English and 2) because I was travelling to multiple countries on each trip,
it would require a sim in each country or buying a world sim and I was
getting too confused in my research on it. On all my trips, I signed up for
the World Travelers option through ATT that was $5.99/mth plus $1 a minute
(or more depending on country) for calls as a backup. Unfortunately, I had
to use this quite a bit through Italy & Greece. Last year, I found out ATT
has a VOIP app for the iPhone called ATT Call International. If you have
wifi access and initiate your call through this app, your calls can be as
low as 3¢/min depending on what country you're in. I used that quite a bit
in Austria, Germany & Switzerland. I found it was cheaper to pay the couple
of bucks for internet access and use this app than to pay the world traveler
fees and I could download emails, surf and let my kids get online too. I'm
still researching what options are available for Spain which is where I'm
headed this year.
No matter what, I would bring it with me in case of emergency. For example,
the trips I go on are school trips. If a kid were to get lost, I could turn
my phone on so the child could call me.
Hope this helps you.
Jo Anne
From: apple-iphone@yahoogroups.com [mailto:apple-iphone@yahoogroups.com] On
Behalf Of digngen
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 11:40 AM
To: apple-iphone@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [apple-iphone] US iPhone5 - travel to Europe
There is a possibility I might get to go to Europe (London, France, Italy)
sometime this year. It would be a first for me.
Should I take my phone or leave it at home?
I am wondering how useful it would be over there or would it just cost me
too much to use it.
Would I need to make some arrangement before the trip?
I've heard using a local (Europe)card or the internet would be a wiser
choice for communicating back home(US).
What could I use it for while in Europe?
Are there apps that I could use there? Would I be charged to use them in
Europe?
What can I use it for without additional fees?
I don't want to end up with a giant bill when I come back.
Information and tips are much appreciated!
Regards, PM
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