smartphone usage

Susan; we need more info; what carrier are you with? Each carrier has info on their web site with options for "reduced rate" plans. Please read; better yet, have the kids read it and explain it to you! Note, if you leave data "on" you can come home with thousands of dollars in charges. Your kids can bankrupt you! Texting is the cheapest, but if the kids do it every 5 seconds they will soon eat up the EU plan that you sign up for. A cheap, or free option is to set-up/ use Skype on your phone or laptop, ipad, etc and use wi-fi hot spots to call for as little as 2.3 cents/minute (or some other cheap rate) to anywhere in the world, or for free to any other device on wi-fi/internet. You can also text using Skype. (France= 10cents/minute?) skype is cool since you can put so may $$ in a fund, and they will notify you when it is time to re-charge. I am sure that others will chime in here with many more options. Texting can be a great way for people traveling together to stay in touch, but Europe, on US cell phone carrier plans, can quickly bankrupt you if you do not turn your data off, and fail to check your usage with your carier's EU plan that you sign up for. That is why many people buy/take an unlocked quad band GSM phone with them, and buy a cheap pre-paid EU SIM card to use for calls, etc. We are going to London and Ireland in May. We will be taking our unlocked IPhones and buying SIM cards at the local UK Carphonewarehouse (supposedly VERY helpful picking a plan that will work for you). I'll get one pre-paid SIM with a small amount of data, and one with just phone and text. We'll learn how to re-fill there and then take the phones to Ireland.

hi, +1 to above. just an fyi, you will be +6 hours ahead so talking wont be happeing 24/7 or even most of the day. most if not all of Europe uses PAYG. as a matte of fact when i was in Amsterdam, they asked me why we go into debt and have debt when it comes to things like cellphones and such. also, alot of them text overthere, not alot of calls since some carreirs charge more to call a landline and you can see that in the charges. once you get your info/charges overhere and info about charges overther you can get a better idea on what you want. Take a look at carphonewarehouse.co.uk. its just one site too and not the only site, but you can look at the different carriers overthere and what they charge. i used it to figure out what i was going to do. remember to unplug yourself from all of the electronics garbage you will toting around and ENJOY, RELAX and absorbe where youre at. happy trails.

Susan, I definitely agree with the first reply. It would be really helpful if you could provide further information. For example: > Which network are you with in the U.S.? > What type of Smartphone are you using? > Are you planning to mostly place calls back to the U.S. or only in-country in Europe? We'll await your reply......

We have Verizon, but it seemed quite expensive. Even for texting.
Most phone calls will be to other European # to check in with the people we are renting from and to touch base with friends we are visiting. I know my daughter will want to text

How old is your daughter? How much are you willing to spend to allow her to text? Will you limit her texts? When I've looked into the phone situation during various trips I've found that texting tends to cost 50 cents per outgoing text. That can quickly add up. I know my daughter has no self control when it came to texting. Is yours willing to pay for her texts? If she knows she will have to pay it might make her more aware of how many she is sending. Otherwise you could come home to a VERY large bill. Maybe instead of texting she could email her friends. Most of the apartments we have rented in Europe allowed free calls to the U.S. if you are staying in apartments you may find the same.

Susan, Thanks for the additional information. > What type of Smartphone are you using? Your Verizon phone may or may not even work in Europe, depending on which model it is.

We spent two weeks in Italy last summer and both of our daughters (18 and 20 years old) did not miss the texting at all. These are two girls that send 100's of texts a day. They did find free wifi everywhere and used that a lot.

There are a number of phone apps available that allow you to text via wifi for free. I used one called HeyWire when I was in Spain last year, and there are others, like Kakao Talk. As a previous poster noted, the time difference will prevent some calling and texting. When it is evening at home, it will be the middle of the night where you are. Data can be horrendously expensive, so using wifi is a lot better, and it's not hard to find.

Re: rational use of telephones by young adults....recall Audrey's long call to her boyfriend in the movie European Vacation.