iPhone

Dawn,

To answer the first part of your question on whether anyone had any luck traveling with one in Europe", yes, but unfortunately in some cases it's been bad luck! The second part of your question is the reason for the bad luck.

The I-Phone will work fine in Europe but as your son will be "roaming" on his AT&T plan, the costs for voice calls will be a bit expensive. These can be reduced slightly by using an International Roaming plan (contact AT&T for details). It would be a good idea to minimize voice calls and use text for short messages where possible.

However the voice roaming rates pale in comparison to the data roaming rates. I've seen reports on travel boards from travelers who have returned home after "roaming" in Europe with an I-Phone and found a $3000+ bill waiting for them! Many people leave the data portion of the phone disabled when in Europe.

If the GPS app. uses the data section of the I-Phone, it would be a good idea to use it very sparingly. As I recall, the I-Phone uses a combination of GPS receiver and Google maps via the internet for the GPS function, but it's been a while since I checked the technical spec's. I'm not too familiar with AT&T data roaming plans, so you might contact them for specific rates.

Cheers!

If you feel your son will need a GPS device in Europe, I would recommend buying him a dedicated one instead of trying to deal with data plans on the iPhone in Europe. The iPhone cannot give turn by turn directions at this time, and the maps I find are kind of hard to deal with when street navigating.

A dedicated GPS like a Tom Tom or Garmin is a better option at this time (and can be found for around $300 with Europe maps).

I use my iPhone when I travel around Europe, and although data charges are slightly more reasonable for us Europeans, it still costs a great deal (especially when you have an unlimited bundle at home).

I'd still recommend taking it, but make sure "Data Roaming" is turned off. Then, if you urgently need to find your location or send an email, book a hotel, etc., then you can simply turn it back on again. Also remember that there are many free wireless hotspots around.

When I travelled to Russia, I used a GPS tracking app so that my mother could keep track of us. Even in the wilds of Russia and the Ukraine there is EDGE coverage. Used sparingly over a month, I think it still cost £100 though.

Mark

Dawn, check down a couple of pages to 4/1/09 and you will find a thread on this very topic. Bottom line? Don't use the data retrieval function at all; it is way too expensive.

Thanks for the great info! I'll be sure to pass this along to him.