SIM cards in Europe
 

We will be traveling in Portugal, Spain and Germany in the next couple of weeks. We haven’t been to Europe since Covid. In the past, we have purchased a SIM card for the phone in the country we were in. Have they yet come up with one that can be used in various countries so I don’t have to keep changing?

You don't need to change - roaming is charged at the same rate as local calls and has been since 2017. The only problems are fair use policy which can throttle your data if you use too much (unlikely) and reloading the sim when abroad, not all providers will accept a foreign credit card.

That is what I was told, but in 2019 I purchased two 5€ cards for the price of one in Lisbon which worked fine in Portugal but were not recognized by the available net providers in France; maybe that is why I got a two for one price.

I can't answer your question from personal knowledge, but I purchased an e-SIM from Orange before my trip to France back in May, and while the one I purchased was for France, I think they offered one for Europe.

If you haven't used e-SIM's before, and you have a new(ish) smart phone, they are worth looking into. I'll never go back to changing physical SIM cards.

I think you need to check your sim is suitable for roaming. At €5 it wouldn't give you much data, and the problem is as I said loading more money onto them when in another country.
Even with our contracts we sometimes have difficulty in France finding a signal or a provider, and though we are both with KPN we often end up on different providers, with different levels of signal.

Who is your service provider? We have T Mobile which offers nice international options, with free texting, generous to unlimited data and cheap voice rates, no need to get a new SIM. They also offer very reasonably priced Data pass options which provide unlimited data and voice as well as hotspot service as well as free texting

I used to give the advice to go for a SIM provider like Lebara which has English-speaking operators and dead cheap prices but so much changes in this space so quickly that there may be better options available to you. I nowadays use my Australian provider (Vodafone) and do international roaming with them. It is a little pricey but very convenient.

Lavandula

Thank you, everyone, all for the help. I'll definitely look in to that e-sim. Interesting. A little late for now. We leave Monday, but back to Europe for 3-4 months next year. ,