Global SIM Card - recommendations

I'm sure Mobal is legit, although I've never used them. There are several others, including One Sim and LeFrench Mobile.

We've been using Telestial for a few years and are happy with it.

Telestial

Some trips we make no calls and some trips we make a couple of calls, so for us it has worked out cheaper than buying a new sim card for each trip. It's also nice to know my European phone number before travelling so I can give it out.

Neil

When going on a multi-country trip, I always opt for T-Mobile. Sign up at home and cancel when you get back from your trip. I found it to work seamlessly when crossing borders. Cost depends on the data plan you choose. Use wifi when you can minimize what you need. Incoming and outgoing calls are $.20 per minute and you'll have a US number if anyone needs to call you.

I don't know what phone you'll be using but in the past I had problems locating nano SIM cards so getting T-Mobile precluded finding one in Europe.

Mobal is legit and works very well. But, I've learned the hard way to use it as a back up due to expense. So, get a Mobal SIM card and use it till you can find a local SIM and then replace the Mobal SIM with that one.

Duke - it appears that Mobal has 2 products.. one is a simple SIM card costing $9 with no credit with relatively high voice/text/data rates and the other is $50 SIM card good for 30 days with unlimited texts/data and $0.30/min voice.

Are you referring to getting the simple one as a backup? I'm considering the $50 card to use for my 30 day trip. The benefit I see with this option is the unlimited data. I'd not likely to use voice much at all. I'm hoping that $50 investment on the Mobal SIM would be a better one than getting multiple local SIMs in the EU countries I plan to visit. I'm unfamiliar with the average cost/coverage of sim cards locally in EU, which would be key in determining if I'm on the right track.

One option I've used in the past is signing up for the $30/month AT&T international data plan for 200MG using my phone from the US. This level of data is adequate for my previous trips ranging from 10-15 days. However, with the longer length of stay and driving I will be doing this time, 200MG may not be nearly enough. That's what prompted me to consider other options.

Thanks!!!

When going on a multi-country trip, I always opt for T-Mobile. Sign up
at home and cancel when you get back from your trip. I found it to
work seamlessly when crossing borders. Cost depends on the data plan
you choose. Use wifi when you can minimize what you need. Incoming and
outgoing calls are $.20 per minute and you'll have a US number if
anyone needs to call you.

What Philip said. I have used TMobile from Istanbul to London and most places in between. Cheap, convenient. Fee Data and 40 cent phone calls. what more do you need on vacation?

One other thing qp...your phone must be unlocked to use SIM cards from non ATT carriers.

Realize the data speed you are being offered is 128kb/second which is equivalent to the old 2G network. Probably ok for email, simple browsing, etc but forget it for anything like streaming or downloading anything. T-Mobile is about the same speed.

It will seem very slow compared to your coverage at home. I'm not saying it's bad, just making you aware of it.

Another vote for TMobile. All the data and texting I want for no additional fee. And with calls at 20 cents per minute, I call home freely. It's really a nice carrier for travel. It's my regular carrier at home so it's a great bonus for me. I find the speeds to be just fine...I'm not watching movies on it or anything, but I use it to navigate around town some, check my email, text etc.

I've used Telestial's Europe SIM card before, which covers Europe and a lot more. An added feature is the reduced rates for calling back to several key destinations, including Australia, the USA and South Africa. Works great, saved me a lot of time.

In reference to the rest of your post, buying multiple local SIMs really is the cheapest option. If you get prepaid SIMs, then the rates on offer are the lowest you'll find. However, what you save in money, you can lose in time, as several European countries require that you register for your SIM before you can use it. So, waiting in line at the store, producing scans of your passport, etc. and waiting for them to inform you that you're good to go... this can eat huge chunks out of your vacation time. A global SIM will just change to the best available provider the moment you cross a border, and it's as easy as that.

One other tip - Google Maps is now available offline. If you download maps of the areas that you're visiting before you travel, you'll have almost all the functionality of maps offline as you'd get online, which can save you even more. Have a great time!