What are American travelers doing as far as cell coverage while traveling? We have Verizon - $10/day travel plan - but am wondering if there's a more cost-effective way to have use of my android phone while traveling throughout France. Want to keep my number and to be able to use data while away from wifi in our lodging. .

Purchasing a SIM for use while traveling requires you to have a number based in that country. If you want to keep your number then you really have no choice but to go with Verizon's international roaming.

When we had AT&T we both tried their international roaming and at other times purchased a local SIM at our destination. Since we switched to T-Mobile (superior service at much lower price!) we just take advantage of their free texting abroad and use WhatsApp or their reasonable rates for voice calling.

If you want to keep you number you need to use what your carrier provides.

You could get a cheap travel phone and a local SIM. At $10 a day you'll pay for the phone soon enough

Dual sim phones are handy. Use your everyday number when needed and a local number in the second slot.

Our T-mobile plan allows us free calls to the US when we're in France. We must be calling from our US numberto a US number over wifi.

We just got back from Europe yesterday and I bought an Orange e-sim, 14 day calling plus data plan. Worked perfectly for us, though I didn’t use my original number, only the French number.

Understand T-mobile offers the cheapest international plan and people have been able to use it with the e-sim, check the Fodors thread below for details.

E-sim or sim card for travel

If you are calling over Wifi then you are basically using VOIP, so the call should be free. Whatsapp (amongst others) offers the same.

If your phone doesn't offer dual sim,or e-sim and you don't want to, or can't change your provider, then do as traveller nick says and buy a cheap phone with sim and data in France, or take a cheap phone from home and buy a sim for it on arrival.