Sim card for France, Barcelona and Venice

Kay,

If you purchase a SIM card in one country, it will be usable at slightly higher rates in the other countries, but you may have difficulty topping it up when you leave the country of purchase.

One other option you might consider is to use a SIM from one of the travel phone firms such as Roam Simple, Cellular Abroad, Telestial, Mobal or EuroBuzz. They have SIM's starting at about $9 and rates for basic voice & text are quite reasonable, especially if you're going to be using the phone sparingly. However, if you require data, the costs will increase sharply. These firms typically use a U.K.-based number and have fairly consistent rates across Europe. They often use post-paid billing (calls charged to a credit card), so no issues with topping up. One advantage of this approach is that you have a working phone as soon as you step off the plane, so don't have to waste valuable holiday time shopping for and setting up a local number.

Lebara is a company that operates in multiple countries and has good rates. Here's their France page: http://www.lebara.fr/?isoCode=en_GB

What I'd do is get a French SIM and try to set up online top ups, then test this while you're still in France. If you are able to get these to work, you can keep your French SIM in Spain and Italy. If you can't do online top ups, you can either put on a lot of credit while you're still in France, or can just buy a new SIM in each country when you run out of credit.

For some providers in each country, try looking at Prepaid GSM: http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/operators.php

I think there's a good chance the first Sim will last you for two weeks if you're just calling hotels and restaurants.

Thanks, everyone. I think I'll try to find out how to top off a Sim card online. Maybe there will be a way to check my minutes. online before I leave France. In any case, it's all better than using my cell phone in Europe as mine is a "business" cell phone and I would be charged a minimum of $2 per minute!

We had and Orange card purchased in Paris and were not able to top it for use in Spain. You cannot refill on line without a French account. And you cannot refill at an Orange office in Spain because although they are the 'same' company they are not really and don't honor each other's cards. Perhaps if we had refilled it in France before heading for Spain it would have worked but we couldn't get it to work with a little juice left on arrival and were unable to refill it there either on line or in person.

Thanks, Janet. That's exactly the information I was hoping to find. I'm sorry to hear you were stuck without enough minutes in Spain. I imagine all the French carriers operate the same way. I will be sure to top off my French Sim card before leaving France!

I have been using LEBARA sim cards for nearly five years without a glitch . While you can cross border them , I generally buy a card for the country I'm in , makes things really easy and the card itself is either free or about the cost of a coffee . Check the website for available countries , but they are not available in Italy . I have used them in the UK , France , Switzerland and Germany with perfect results and calls are rock bottom cheap . Also recently , there are data plans available . I'm back in the UK this fall and I'll pick one up on arrival . Top up is easy and you can even get a top up at the till in places like Tesco .

Steven - how do you get a LEBARA card online? Their website seems to require an address on one of their countries.

@ Carol , I have never purchased online . In any of the countries , the cards are ubiquitous at tabacs , news kiosks , and the like . Just pick one up when you arrive .

Thanks for the info!