This is great information! Thank you all. My teens will (should) be fine going mostly "phoneless" on our touring days, but at night and on our long days of travel (Eurostar London to Paris; TGV Paris to Switzerland; Zurich Airport, etc), I want them to be able to relax and re-connect with friends, since that's so important for that age group. And I want them to enjoy trips with their parents, which they're more apt to do if they don't feel punished with 6-hour train rides in which they have no phone. It does look like they can text (no photos/videos) freely.
But you all made me wonder how often we'll have access to wifi. All our lodging has it (whether it's decent wifi remains to be seen - some hotels in the US for example have terribly slow wifi). In addition, it looks like the Eurostar and high-speed trains offer it. And the Zurich Airport seems to have it as well, although it looks somewhat difficult to access.
I appreciate the reminders about turning off data or shutting off auto-syncing, etc. My biggest concern is that we all avoid doing things that we think use data and then not realize our phones were automatically using data constantly and come home to an enormous phone bill. I also wonder if data is used if my kids' friends continue to send them photos/videos, etc, while we're out during the day. My husband especially has been poring over T-Mobile's website and our phone data usage to try to figure out the key offenders (one child primarily), but it's not easy!
A mobile hotspot is an interesting idea, but logistically looks difficult since we'll be moving cities, etc. If anyone else has thoughts on the logistics of that, we're open to it. We may add an international, higher speed plan to my husband's phone only, just to ensure that we can always use Google Maps, etc., when we're out.
You've all definitely given me some helpful information, including about T-Mobile specifically and just general information that I hadn't considered. Thank you.
