> Apparently v. easy to get a SIM card upon landing in Europe and a lot cheaper too.

I agree that's probably true. My problem is that both my kids are going on a school trip to England, Germany and France, and I want to make sure they have a working SIM each. I can't rely on them to try to source them when they get there (they are young teenagers, and while there will be teachers with them I can't expect the teachers to go looking for SIM cards).

So I need to source SIM cards before they go, have them sent to me, and be reasonably sure they are going to work in England, France and Germany.

<i>So I need to source SIM cards before they go, have them sent to me, and be reasonably sure they are going to work in England, France and Germany.</i>

This should fit the bill for you: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/20227110-post4.html

If not, have a look at these threads and see what works best for your situation:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...paid-sims.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...and-wales.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...im-france.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...m-germany.html

I find lemonsim sim card cheap, I have used it before and I'm satisfied.

A tip for the best SIM-Card in Europe: in Italy you can purchase a Vodafone SIM-Card (10 €) and ask them to activate the option "Smart Passport"
With that option, you have 500 MB per day (throtthled after 500 MB, no extra costs) for 3 Euros.
You can install it in a MiFI, set the APN to mobile.vodafone.it (very important: a wrong APN costs lots of money, because it is not covered by the promotion) and you can go online in 47 countries for the same price.
The country list:
Albania, Andorra, Austria, Azores, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canary islands, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Faroe Island, Finland, France, French Guyana, Germany, Gibraltar, Great Britain, Greece, Guadalupe, Guernsey, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Jersey, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madeira, Malta, Martinique, Monaco, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Reunion, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Turkey + USA
If you use it in a smartphone, you also have 50 mins and 50 SMS per day.
But: do not use tethering, otherwise it switches APN and you pay the standard tariff per MB!

Order SIMs from http://www.lebara.co.uk ,lebara.fr and lebara.de

All will mail to you if you add in your city, country and postal code. You have to be a bit 'creative' when filling in the forms.

Lebara is inexpensive and offers low rates for calls back to the US. The best thing is the SIMs are free and you'll have them before the kids leave.

This is what happens when you resurrect an ancient thread. Much of the information becomes obsolete and as Bob Dylan once said, the times they are changing.

European roaming rates within the eu (sometimes non eu countries such as Norway and Switzerland are included but that is on a country by country basis) are on the way out and will disappear next spring completely. Having said that, calls outside the eu might be cheap from individual countries but as soon as you leave that country, these rates explode. Also, I don't knoow where the person who brought this thread back to life resides but I can answer for Americans (which might not be helpful for those outside the USA).

I was always a fan of local sims. The past 2 years, however, I have discovered my own carrier in the USA, T Mobile USA on a relatively low plan, now has very reasonable calls while roaming in Europe. Their simple choice plans come with 20¢/minute calls in 128 countries both within the country and internationally including back to North America and that includes every country just about (a few exceptions so check their web site but none of what might be considered the major countries including Russia being included in the plan) within Europe. Plan also includes unlimited texts and unlimited low speed data and calls to and from Mexico and Canada within North America. Now I know T Mobile USA is not the most powerful USA carrier and there are many areas where it is not available or has a weak signal. And I also know there are many ways via the internet to do better but 20¢/minute is most reasonable. As a matter of fact, it is even cheaper than to use a local sim within its specific country. As an example, I have an O UK sim that gives me calls to the USA at 2p/minute (very hard to beat that) but a call within the UK to a UK number if 40p/minute (about 65¢ US/minute). That same very call made with T Mobile USA as a roaming call is 20¢.

Other US carriers are moving a bit in tht direction. Sprint has a similar type plan although far fewer countries.

Like I said, I didn't go through the thread just saw the dates but who knows what will happen next. Just take a look at how dated various threads are on some of these topics before you accept them as valid today.

You forgot to mention that T-Mobile has free WiFi calling from anywhere to anywhere if you have a WiFi enabled smart phone, like the IPhone 6 and certain android models. For now, only T-Mobile is making that feature available to its customers.

Roaming fees go in 2017, not next year.
Some providers will get rid of them sooner, but meanwhile roaming fees will remain. They are reduced next year, but don't go completely.
It has taken a long time to get this, the providers put up a long fight.
We lose some net neutrality as a result.
Time will tell if that proves a high price to pay for a couple of weeks a year abroad (for the average person).