fhssaber

Hello,

I will be traveling in two weeks to Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, and France. As my regular phone plan is quite expensive for international data, I am looking into purchasing a SIM card for my time there. I will be traveling for three weeks. Does anyone have any recommendations for which SIM card or plan to purchase? Which cards and plans will work in all of those countries?

Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you!

lavandula

There is roaming throughout Europe now so any SIM should work. I used to get Lebara for this purpose as it is dirt cheap and there are English-speaking operators. However, I no longer buy SIMs. I have a Vodafone plan (Australia) and they have roaming for $5 a day, which means any day you make a phone call, you get charged $5 once and can then use it like you would at home without extra costs. You can get calls at any time, I think you don't incur costs. I use phone calls sparingly and data I use when in my accommodation or a café (free wifi). In the US I think T-Mobile has plans also. In Austria I have also used the cheap SIMs from Hofer, which is their Aldi supermarket, but I doubt they have English operators (I speak German, I didn't notice).

Lavandula

bvlenci

The SIM card you buy would depend on the first country you visit. Each country has its own operators. Any EU SIM card can be used when traveling in any other EU country.

If you're going to have a long stay in a different country, you might be required to get a new SIM card in that country.

jan47ete

I bought a SIM card in the US through onesimcard.com. I bought a local US number for a year. This way my family can call anytime. I give that local US number to my hotels.

My trip last month I forgot it. Had to buy a Croatian sim card but as a tourist it was only good for receiving and making calls to Croatian numbers. In Italy bought a sim card that unbeknownst to me had a spanish number and supposedly for all of europe, but calls to my phone number did not get through to me.

hetismij2

If you didn't know it was a Spanish number those calling you would not know to put the country code before your number, so they wouldn't get through to you.
I don't understand why being a tourist would affect where you could call with a Croatian SIM or who could call you, unless again you didn't tell people to use the country code as well as the phone number.

Roaming is allowed throughout the EU with fair use policies in place. The biggest problem could be trying to top up a sim with more data/calls when you are in another country. Not many providers will accept foreign credit cards. Lebara does but many national providers don't.
Edit: can you use an e-sim?

bvlenci

Onesimcard's prices are far higher than what you would pay for a national SIM card, especially their data prices. It's hard to compare the costs, because they have many different plans, but it looks as though all have the same data prices, which is "from" $0.01 per MB. This would be $10 per GB, which is very little, and it doesn't say what the "to" price is.

A card for travel in Europe costs $29.95, with $10 of credit. I can't figure out how much calls would cost with this card. It says that incoming international calls are free, but that's true of all European calling plans.

I've been looking into SIM cards for friends and relatives who are coming to visit me in Italy this year. They could get one from a reliable network (Iliad) which costs €10, with an €8 monthly plan that includes 80 GB of data and unlimited calls and SMS, including to all EU countries, the UK, and the US. That 80 GB of data would cost $80 with the onesim card.

These days data is often more important than calls, since so many communicate with Facetime and Facebook Messenger.

twk

I just got back from a trip to France. I am a T-Mobile customer (iPhone 12 pro), and they have a useful international roaming set up, with free 2G data, cheap calls, and I think texts were free or very reasonable. However, I wanted to be able to have good data access, and reports I had received on T-Mobile's free data abroad was not great. So, I got a e-SIM card from Orange, that gave me a French phone number and 20G of data (about 6 times what I needed) for 14 days, that can be topped up for additional time. I was even able to make and receive calls using my T-Mobile SIM and US number if I wanted. For some folks, that might be overkill. A data only international plan might be just as good if you are happy making calls over one of internet calling apps.

In any event, if you have a relatively new smartphone, I would encourage you to look into e-SIM cards.

This link is from one of the data only providers, but it does a good job of walking you through the basics: link

Heimdall

I always keep my old iPhone when upgrading to a new one, and take both when travelling outside my country of residence. Then I can leave my home country SIM in one and buy a SIM in the country I am visiting to use in the other. It’s great to have a local number when using Uber or making reservations in restaurants.

If you aren’t worried about getting calls or emails from home you can just buy a SIM in the first country you visit with enough data and airtime to keep you going when you switch countries. The EU roaming laws make it easier to use your SIM when you cross borders, but you may not be able to buy more data. There are always other ways to keep in contact with friends and family at home through emails, WhatsApp, etc.

Tulips

Or just buy a phone that takes 2 sim cards.

Be careful with Switzerland. Depending on your provider, turning on roaming in Switzerland can be a costly affair.
My Belgian provider charges 3 euro per MB in Switzerland. Easy to run up a big bill.

hetismij2

Wow. Clearly some providers stick strictly to EU countries. KPN includes Switzerland (and the Faroes), and the UK in it's EU roaming deal.
Good advice though to check the website of your chosen provider as to where they allow roaming and other restrictions they my have.

Tulips

I have a UK sim card too - no extra charge for Switzerland. My husband has a Dutch sim - no additional charge for Switzerland either. Just Belgian Telenet. I learned the hard way, being charged 50 euros just driving through Switzerland and using maps.

hetismij2

Ouch! Watch out with the UK Sim - most UK providers have already or are planning to drop free roaming.