iPhone plans for traveling abroad?

The Verizon international service we used was $10 a day (they only charge for the day you actually use your phone) or $100 for 30 continuous days. Guess it depends on how many days you need to make calls.

I might add, not being techies and after the frustration of years of international travel and trying to get our phones to work through the various European options, not having to do anything but call Verizon and set up the plan for 30 days has been well worth the cost.

I use Viber for international calls to the US, I put $15 on it a year ago, still has a lot of cash left on it. You can synch it with your address book, so no need to do anything else, though I think I may have added +1 for USA.

To me, the verizon international plan is well worth the $100. My phone works just as it does at home and the plan comes with unlimited data.

I have an iPhone 14 Pro w/an eSIM, which I guess is an advantage over the previous manual SIM cards, which we never used.

@periscope, I'm assuming the OP means that her phone (iPhone 14) has dual eSIM capability and no physical SIM port.

Cynthia, keep in mind that eSIMs are mostly data plans with no phone number. There are exceptions - Orange in France has an eSIM plan with a phone, but it's a French phone number.

If you want to use your own phone number, you're probably best off just springing for Verizon. You can either pay $100 a month or $10 a day. I would suggest just getting it for one phone, and using that phone to make and receive calls. Then for the other phone, you could get an eSIM data plan, which would be relatively inexpensive.

We used the $100 month plan from Verizon. You can then use that phone as a hotspot for the other phone, if you ever need to both use data at the same time and WiFi is not available.

I will add that Skype or similar will allow you to MAKE very inexpensive calls to the U.S. in the regular way (or to European numbers) when you have WiFi.

However receiving calls is a different matter.

Edit: I just went to the Ubigi website and can’t see any mention of phone calls or having a phone number - just data.

I think the advantage of a newer iPhone is that you can add an eSIM as a second SIM. The advantage is, you can have your home number active, and have a second number on a European SIM with data and local calling. International calling can be an expense either way if you call, but others calling you typically do not cost them any more, or you.

We changed to T-Mobile as we like the international plan over Verizon. But we mostly use WhatsApp in Europe.

Carrie - is Verizon's plan $100 per month?? T-mobile Magenta with seamless international and data is much less. (unless I was grandfathered into something no longer available). We switched years ago from Verizon and have been very happy.

Carrie - is Verizon's plan $100 per month?? T-mobile Magenta with seamless international and data is much less. (unless I was grandfathered into something no longer available). We switched years ago from Verizon and have been very happy.

ORDtraveler, I'm not Carrie, but can tell you that Verizon offers a choice of a $100 a month plan or a $10 a day plan. I did the same as you and switched from Verizon to T-Mobile. I have the T-Mobile Magenta Max plan, which offers free international data plan and international calls for .25 a minute. I just used it this year in Scotland and it was wonderful! And best of all, I didn't have to do a thing to initiate it.

Thanks, Mardee. We have the same TMobile plan. I've had it for a number of years and used it in multiple Asian, European, and Oceania countries. Never a complaint!

Thank you, all, for your many helpful suggestions. I think we may just go with the Verizon monthly plan.