Roaming, sim cards, viber, whatapp, etc
 

Good Morning. Please bear with this non-tech gentleman for questions that has been raised before. My wife and I and our dear friends, also a couple are flying to Europe next week. We are in our 70s and not really that tech savvy. Our friends says for us to get a phone so we can text each other. I am at a loss how to do this. Our friend gave us a "sim" card and said to install it on an old iPhone 4s I have. This iPhone 4s was use in Asia (not by me) with a "sim gps" card before so our friend say it should work. He then put in this app "Whatsapp" on my iPhone and says we're ready to go. I must add this iPhone 4 does not have any cellular plan. I used it on wifi in my store to listen to music.

Now my son says to just have Verizon add an International plan to my current iPhone 8. I called Verizon and as we're not going to use it regularly, it looks like the Pay as You go would be enough and I just have to put my phone on roaming. But our friends says that won't work because they won't be able to text us as this sim they got doesn't allow texting to US phone #s. And another thing, I get texts and calls from my store and if I do the Pay as You Go, even if I don't respond to the text and calls, I do get charge for the text coming in. Should I then just bring both the old iphone4 with the sim and my iphone 8?

Thanks in advance.
Joseph

We are moving your question to the Europe Forum for a wider audience.

Thank you. This is my first post. I didn't know where to post it.

What countries are you visiting? That can make a difference which sims/plans work.

But I am confused (I'm not a techy either) -- I've used the Verizon international plan several times with no problems. Are they sure they can't text you.

Welcome to Fordors - unfortunately brand new members are on a sort of probation and you won't be able to post again until tomorrow. Hopefully by then others will have posted some advice for you.

We had the same question about Verizon's pay as you go plan before our recent trip to Italy and chose to go with the 1mo plan for $70 each phone. This included free incoming texts, and enough outgoing texts for our need, and 0.5GB data. It was never quite clear to us if a single incoming text would trigger the pay as you go charge. In general we turned off the network data on our phone so it wouldn't use the data plan.

A few things to note:
Even though she was on an Italian network (WIND, TIM, or Vodaphone, depending on the day and location) my wife did NOT get her incoming texts to the phone - she did not know this until we returned to the US and got a bunch of incoming texts the moment we were back in Verizon's network. My phone did get the few incoming texts while roaming, but only AFTER i powered the phone down/up in Europe. Not sure why this happened.

While there we used WhatsApp for text messaging among each other in the group & with the owner of the apartment we rented. We connected to a WiFi network whenever possible - at the apartment, airports, many public spots and shops or restaurants. We also had a free WiFi hot spot from Hertz that we carried with us, so that became the default "always on" wifi we used.

For you, If you only have one phone, and the $70 monthly roaming plan from Verizon is not a concern, I'd just use that and your existing Iphone. It has your contacts, and you can access your emails or maps or whatever else you need. You should install WhatsApp on that phone and test it out before traveling.

If you need any other tips or have q, just reply here and I'll help if i can. There are many apps that are useful for travel in Europe, depending on where you are going. maps, tourist info, parking, transit info, etc.

One app I recommend you get now before leaving is the MobilePassport. If you don't have the GlobalEntry pass then this can save you a lot of time upon arrival back in the US. See this post of mine for more info. https://www.fodors.com/community/uni...t-app-1667948/

Agree with J62 - just use the Verizon data plan. I have used their plans on several trips and had zero problems and near complete simplicity. You just have to learn to dial with international prefixes. Even if it costs a bit more than the SIM card route it's way worth it in my world. When you cross borders it just keeps working, both text and phone calls, including to/from the US, and to/from international numbers. At least it did for me (and janisj).

I have an iPhone 7, so I can't imagine your iPhone 8 won't work.

Verizon also has a $10/day TravelPass plan, you pay the $10 only on days you use the phone. I currently have it, but in general the monthly plan probably makes sense.

Good point on international prefixes. Before we traveled I updated a few key phone #'s with the +1 prefix so any # I needed to call were good to go. This can be a permanent update, as it doesn't impact calling within the us to have the +1.

Also, Verizion lets you enable "call over wifi" . On the iphone it's under settings / cellular. I used this several times to call cc co when we had an issue. Easy - you'd never know you weren't on the cell network.

Did both phones have mobile data enabled and data roaming enabled? This is required in most modern phones for texting to work at all, even if you are connected to WiFI and not using mobile data.