Hello,
I am going to Turkey for a week in a couple of months and, hopefully, Scotland and Iceland soon thereafter. Ideally, I'd like to buy one phone to use in all three countries. Is that possible? I have Verizon, so using my own phone is not an option. Everything I've found thus far about a phone for Turkey is that throw-away phones are not cheap, but that information is at least two years old. Resources for more info would also be much appreciated.
Thanks!
Kalimero007
What you should do is get an unlocked GSM phone and then you can purchase fairly inexpensive local Simm cards. You might be able to pick one up used on Ebay. Target is offering a quad band phone that should work worldwide for about $40. That one doesn't have GPS great for local navigation. Their next step up for $50 does have it.
I use my smart phone quite extensively when traveling and find it indispensable. Makes finding hotels, transportation, restaurants, attractions and routes easy-peasy.
I used my GSM phone and got a T mobile international plan for 1 month. It worked well. Shop around in US for an inexpensive GSM phone that does what you want it to do. We used an iphone 3G and it worked fine.
Hopefully someone with more experience in Turkey will answer but if not, here's our experience. We were in Turkey last September and two years earlier had used our US phone and a Turkish SIM card. Last year we learned there were new restrictions and all cell phones need to be registered with the Turkish government. Initially unaware of this we purchased a SIM card as we had done previously. It never worked but as we were on a driving trip we were unable to return to the original shop. Long story short, we ended up buying a new, inexpensive phone there. It works in all of Europe but it is dual band only so it does not work in the US. The sad part is that we already had our own unlocked quad band phone that worked in Europe. I'm not aware of this restriction in any other countries.
If you were not going to Turkey, I would suggest to you what we did a few years ago. We bought an inexpensive used, unlocked quad band phone on Amazon. We then bought a prepaid US SIM card and used the phone here to be sure it actually worked. Since then we have used that phone in Portugal, Greece, France, and Italy by buying a local SIM card, with no problem. Since you are going to Turkey you might try to get more info on the phone restrictions. Trip Advisor might have more people with recent experience with cell phones in Turkey. Good luck!
Odd. I used my Verizon phone all over Turkey while there this past June with no connection issues. I did keep the data off because of the cost.
Just got back from Istanbul. T-MOBILE was flawless and cost was reasonable.
I just returned from Turkey in June 2014. Never heard I needed to register the phone and had no trouble using my AT&T/GSM iPhones that I had unlocked and switched to T Mobile before the trip.
We've used Verizon all over Europe and also Turkey. You may have to change to a phone that has international capability, but Verizon does work there. TC
Other people in my group were using an international Verizon plan. Just be careful and watch your usage. What I liked about T Mobile was unlimited data and texting. Voice calls are extra.
