France/UK SIM card question

Are you aware that getting a SIM will require an unlocked phone and you temporarily lose your US phone number?

If you’re headed to London first you can head to a carphone warehouse store. Let them know your needs and they will help select a plan that meets your needs.

I have used a Vodafone UK SIM and it’s worked well in London and several EU countries but not France specifically. The bundles do not cover calls to US so I se a VOIP service like Skype for those calls.

https://freesim.vodafone.co.uk/

3 UK is often mentioned here in the forums. I’ve no experience with them.

Wherever you go have them install the SIM and setup the phone.

https://www.three.co.uk/Store/SIM/PayAsYou_Go

The Vodafone sim would work in France, too. The EU has had region-wide no-fee roaming for a little over two years now.

(Now — if the U.K. ever leaves the EU, who knows. That will be one of the million little points they will have to figure out. Unless, of course, they leave without a deal, in which case the free roaming will go bye-bye. But there is no way of knowing at this point what will happen or when.)

GiffGaff might work for you - a UK based company operating on the O2 network. I'm not sure of the deals for travellers, but certainly within the UK, Giffgaff calls to Giffgaff numbers are free.

Not wishing to bring politics into the equation, but should brexit go ahead (currently planned 31-Oct - but who knows), Europe wide data roaming on a UK based SIM is likely to end immediately - European mobile companies fought very hard against the seamless roaming legistlation in the first place.

In general people reading this who are travelling to more than one country within Europe might want to look at a non UK based provider (meaning reoaming across Europe at same "local" rate) and possible a UK only sim if heading there as well.

We have found EE in the U.K. to be terrific and it has worked reliably in all countries including France, Italy, and Switzerland in our experience. Here is a link to their pay-as-you-go packs. There is an extra charge for calling the U.S. so you'd want to add some money as a credit to draw on should you need to call home.

You can install Google Voice on your smart phone (unless you have a flip phone) to make free calls home to the US, even to landlines. You should install and set it up before going on your trip and try it out. You can make calls on WiFi or with mobile data from one of the SIM cards. Just be sure to put a +1 in front of US numbers before calling from Europe (your contacts probably won't have the +1 in them). On a keypad, hold down the 0 key to get a + .

In Google Voice, go into settings and choose "Prefer WIFi/Mobile Data for calls" while you are in Europe. Try it from home: put the phone in airplane mode, then connect to your WiFi. Then make a call to some random number (your landline or another cell number?) with the Google Voice app and see how it works. Change the "prefer WiFi/Mobile Data" setting back when you're done. If Google Voice asks you which number to use when dialing, choose "Carrier" so you'll dial out at home with your regular mobile number, not your new Google number.

FYI, I've read that the GiffGaff SIM may not allow EU roaming (France) until it has been used in the UK for a few weeks. EU "Roam Like At Home" is intended for residents, not tourists.

I've used Orange Holiday card for my last couple trips to France. It works fine, gives you data as well as calls/texts and crosses borders. They're good for 14 days (can be extended) so probably will work for you.

I used 3Mobile for a trip to Ireland UK in May. It was the best deal yet but I'm not sure they work outside of UK and Ireland. I never saw or heard of them in France over the last few years.