I carry two phones on two different plans with me on all my trips. Additionally my iPad is cell data service enabled. My reasoning is that one service may work better (or even just work at all) than the other in some places and that reception can vary between devices for no reason that I can discern. Additionally it provides backup for staying connected after I drop a device in a sewage trench (sigh). As detailed below it also provides insurance against one of my service providers freezing my account.
I carry all Apple devices. It is not that I believe that they are better than other choices – I started with Apple in 1983 and have been too lazy to learn a new system. While iPhones and iPads work on the international GSM cellular technology, some other equipment does not – so be sure to confirm that before you buy. Additionally, be sure that the devices you buy are unlocked, as you may need to switch SIM cards in some countries (see Digital)
Some tourists make do with no international plan when they travel, relying on WiFi for data, WiFi assisted calls, map downloads and text services like WhatsApp and FB Messenger. This approach can work for short trips to places with high WiFi penetration, but I regularly research, book and map plans while on a bus or train, and really value cell data service. Cell data service also insulates me from the risk that the internet in a country is shut down – which was inconceivable to me until India did exactly that >90 times in one year. If you do go ‘all WiFi’ be sure to shut off your cellular data in phone settings. I spaced this in Equatorial Guinea and during a particularly animated phone conversation I wandered out of WiFi range and scored a $150 roaming charge.
As an experiment I went cell service free for a month in Oceania. It definitely required a bit more planning (screen shots of maps, addresses, restaurant names). But paradoxically it was refreshing in that I spent a lot less time looking at my device. More ‘heads up’ time brightened my awareness, and got me to spot more landmarks and adventure potentials and lively people.
Many more experienced travelers than me swear by buying local SIM cards and data packages when they arrive in a new country. I do this if there is no coverage in my plans (Somaliland for example), and I would consider this if I stayed in one place for a month or so, but I move very often and am too lazy to go through repeated sourcing and SIM switch outs if I do not have to. Of course airports are almost guaranteed to have vendors of SIM cards. I am usually itching to get out of airports so the purchase and set up time (five minutes in Bhutan, half an hour in Bangladesh) can be frustrating. In my modest research the cost of data-loaded SIM cards internationally run from $4-12/Gig.
The service plans that I originally settled on are T-Mobile and Google Fi. These are great choices if you are out on regular but not particularly extended laps, but as you will see below, they do not work for full time travel.
T-Mobile gives unlimited data and texting in the vast majority of the world. I very seldom make a phone call when not on Whatsapp, but when I have to, the rates are not terrible. Their website is easy to use to check what is included for each country and they offer a very reasonably priced add on that promises to increase data speed (not sure that it does, so I recently cancelled that expense). I was surprised to discover that while traveling I use my phone much more than I did before. They have recently eliminated their lowest cost plans, but the roughly $70/month seems to me to be an incredibly modest expense. They recently fired me as a data customer for ‘spending too much time out of the country’.
Google Fi is my additional choice. If I understand it correctly it is a sort of meta-provider. They piggyback on the cell coverage of other providers and in theory should connect to the strongest option. They have branded phones that are claimed to be superior when signal switching but I prefer that my two phones are identical iPhones. The attraction of this service for me is that it is a pay to play plan. Fixed costs are about $25 a month (which includes 1Gig), and then $10/ Gig of data up to a maximum charge of about $90 per month. I use this for my iPad, which I use all the time, as well as for my backup ’phone, which hardly ever gets switched on. They also recently fired me as a data customer because they ‘noticed that the majority of my usage was out of the country’.
Both T-Mobile and Fi, in the teeny tiny contract small print, state that their plans are intended for US residents. What this means to them is that the phones must be used primarily in the US. Extended usage exclusively abroad will trigger a warning, eventually a data service freeze, and finally a termination of the data contract.
Before I even knew about this restriction I spent six weeks in the Balkans, received the warning nastygram, and had my data service frozen for the remainder of a billing cycle – which ironically kicked in when I was visiting the US. I received the warning again recently, and it was, again, about six weeks in to a lap. Then they cut me off completely from out of USA data roaming. AS I now would be paying $70+ every month to access data for only a couple of months a year I will switch out this service.
I found that Google gave me about five weeks outside the US before they announced that they would suspend data service unless I connected to a US network. They gave me thirty days extra days of service before freezing the data. And then they cut off completely. So I cancelled that service. I am cycling through the many email addresses that I own, setting up a new Fi account for my iPad. I will be interested to see how long I can play this game.
I am trending towards longer adventures (9, 8, and 11 weeks in 2022, 15 weeks so far in 2024) and so am guaranteed to bump up against these limits.
Before you launch be sure to make sure that your chosen phone international phone plan is activated. I arrived in Bangkok to a ‘no service’ notification and spent quite some time with a frankly gracious customer service representative talking me through how to initiate service. As with any hardware/software there are quirks that are infuriating. In Mexico City it took me (slow learner) hours to research how to recover from a random problem that blocked access to data -maps, bike share apps, everything.