data package for iphone 5

You will get many replies here. My first suggestion is to check with your carrier and look at their plans. I have Verizon and went to the store where it was best explained by the sales person. Then in the store I spoke w/VZ rep on their phone. I rcd the instructions & the plan cost on my IPhone5, and by email which was handy for reference purposes. Every time I entereed a country I rcd a welcome message from VZ stating the country's rates and instructions for how to call the U.S, how to call within that country locally and long distance. Handy information to have and not have to look up each time. This spring I traveled to 4 countries and as felt as you did about not wanting to buy a new sim card in every country. I chose their Global Data Plan for $25 per month gave me 100MB. They will pro rate your cost by your travel dates as their Plans start mid month. I used the 100 MB for downloading my ETicket for my flight home, and a couple of personal things I needed to do for home. >The sales person included Voice in the plan, too, as described next. For only $4.99 month you can buy just Global Voice pLan. Rates were mostly .99 cents/minute for calls depending on the country, sent text .50, rcd text. 0.05 cents. Media was .25 cents sent or rcd. Before my trip I downloaded the app for Trip Advisor & RS. I downloaded tons of information which saved costs once I was there. A few times I needed directions to places I had mapped, and the blue dot comes onto the app showing you exactly where you are, so I never felt truly lost. There was no added costs on my bill as I thought I'd get hit for roaming charges but that isn't the case. >>When you decide on a plan review what you need to do to avoid roaming charges as that is where folks incur their expense. I traveled to Alaska in Aug/Sept 2009 and hope to return some day.
Happy travels, Di

Gregor, I teach online while I travel so I need to have a dependable source for internet access - not just for my iPhone or iPad but for the laptop, too. On our past trips we just booked into places that assured us they had wifi, either in the room or in a common area. That worked for the most part but was not always easy or convenient. Wifi goes down, or too many people are sharing it, or the signal is really weak and thus there is limited access. What I decided to do this time was to rent a mifi from cellomobile for the three weeks we would be in France last month. I had the choice of renting for the time period we would be gone or by the gigabyte. I chose the gigabyte because then I would not be restricted in terms of how I was using my data. Their by the week plans restrict you (apparently) from using streaming video or VOIP like Skype. Since I needed to be able to do both of those things while on the road, I chose the per gigabyte plan. It was a good thing I had the back up plan because for the first week every place we stayed had internet access problems. The mifi became THE way I was connecting. The other great benefit of the mifi was that I could put it in my pocket, connect my iPhone to it, and use Google maps while we were walking around Paris. If you do go with something like that, though, just BE SURE to turn off the mifi when you're not using it. You can rack up extra data usage if your laptop decides to do a windows update overnight. (ugh!) Enjoy your trip!

Gregor, I wrote this two years ago: For overseas DATA use local prepaid is best solution. I've just returned from a trip overseas and what I wrote then is still true today. Actually it is even more true because the cost has dropped from what it was in 2011.