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☞ A phone becomes useless if your sim card doesn’t cover the region you travel to. Here are my sim card advice and alternatives.

Content

• Cellphone info for dummies
• Local SIM card
• Local eSIM card
• Virtual phone numbers

Cellphone info for dummies

☞ Just in case, here is some information to consider when making certain purchases

• Is your cellphone unlocked (nowadays, they should be, but just make sure)?
• Is your cellphone too old or compatible with the SIM/eSIM card you want?
• Will you need to make a phone call or can you use Facetime or other apps that can make calls to your people?

Local SIM card

☞ This is the best option if you are staying long term in one place, let’s say a month or more because you also have a local phone number. This is convenient for accessing local wifi networks or other registration procedures.

☞ Airports often have decent options. If it’s around 30$ or 40$, it’s an ok price.

☞ Make sure you don’t just blindly accept an offer though. Look at what is included and what the limits of each is. For example:

• is there calling time limits?
• is the amount of SMS?
• how much data do you have?
• is it on a monthly basis, or on a prepaid basis?
• does it cover all the places you will be in
  • does your plan only cover one province or the whole country?
  • will you go to more than one country in Europe? Getting a card that covers all of Europe will be more cost effective.

eSIM Card

☞ This is the best option if you’re just briefly visiting a location, lets say for a week or so. This is because virtual cards only give you data, no phone number.

They are easy to install and normally have good help services if ever there is a problem.

A good price measure is around 30$ to 40$.

Here are my recommended eSIM companies

• UpeSIM : eSIM for nomad wifi
  • I used this one
    • it has good rates
    • I had 5 Go for one month
    • it offers options for
      • single country travel
      • regional travel (within one continent)
• Airalo
  • I’ve heard good reviews of this one
    • rates are similar
    • it offers options for
      • single country travel
      • regional travel (within one continent)
      • global travel (84 countries covered)

Virtual phone numbers

☞ Sometimes an international phone number is necessary to reach your bank or some other institution back home when WhatsApp won’t cut it.

I’ll talk about Fongo because it’s the one I have used and know about. Do know that there are more out there.

Fongo is an app that operates completely independent of any SIM card you may have.

It offers free and paid services. The paid services are good for that one short call you need to make that one time, instead of investing in a one month package that you might not use.

Examples of free services are

• Local calls (within your state or province)
• Text messages
• Voicemail

Examples of paid services are

• International calls
• Global texting

Recap

☞ There are many ways to stay connected while travelling.
☞ Now the problem might be how to manage the data so that we don’t just run out of juice mid-trip.
☞ Check this post (click here) to help you budget your gigabytes.

Questions & Comments 😄💬 Let’s Chat

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