Europe Sim card help
 

So confused! We can't decide which smartphone/international sim service would be best for our travels in France and Spain. We mostly want to be able to call/receive calls to/from home in Hawaii while we are away at a reasonable cost. I know we can buy a sim card in each country - which we have done before - but have been looking at plans that cover many countries in Europe. Any advice will be appreciated!

Actually, if your sole concern is calling to/from the US then use Google voice from a WiFi hotpost. I routinely use Google Voice (now called Hangouts Dialer) to call my parents in the US from Europe.

Many members are going to tell you to switch over to T-Mobile for their free data roaming and low priced calls and that is certainly an option.

Getting local sims is a possibility as well. Just use Google Voice/hangouts to make your calls to the US.

If you're only going to France and Spain, why would you want one of those overpriced multi-country plans? Just buy two SIMs or, as mentioned, use Google Voice or Skype.

If your phone is "unlocked", meaning that you can use any SIM card from any company, then just walk into a phone shop (they're everywhere) and buy a local SIM card, that will get you a local phone number of course, and you can share that with whomever you wish. In Europe the receiver of a call doesn't pay, only the one who makes the call.

I just did this in Poland, and it cost me three dollars (equivalent) for some 20 minutes, renewable. That's all I needed.

The last time we did this in Spain we had to wait for a fax (YES - a fax) to be sent to a government agency, with photocopies of our passport pages, before we were issued the functional card and number. It may just have been so because of - then - recent terrorist activities where cell phones seem to have been used among the bad guys.

The last time we did this in France that didn't happen, so who knows?

We just did this again in Latvia, without any bureaucratic element, and it is - for us - by far the best and cheapest solution. But we hardly use the phones when away - if you talk a lot, maybe the Google thang is for you?

For the cheapest option, get a local SIM for each country. Calls to and from the US shouldn't be too expensive. Alternately, check your local provider's international roaming deals, most of them cover Europe these days. This isn't the cheapest option, but it is the most convenient as you won't have to change your number. Finally, there's the option of an international SIM card, such as Project Fi from Google or Telestial.com. This fits the middle ground of being not quite as cheap as a local SIM but probably cheaper than roaming on your domestic SIM, and will be inexpensive to call back home.