I am leaving next month for 3 days in Spain and 17 days in France. I will need to have a phone with me, and although I do have AT&T I do not want to use my U.S. phone number. I don't anticipate using the phone excessively, because I will try to Skype from my iPad as much as possible. I also want to have the ability to text. I'm looking at Telestial, because they provide both U.S. AND U.K. numbers. Has anyone out there had any experience with Telestial? Any other suggestions? Thanks!! FWIW - I have an unlocked global phone. It's not a smart phone.
Posted by
Vernon, Canada
32206 posts
Andrea, I don't have any experience with Telestial, but I have used one of the other "travel phone" firms. The service I chose (Roam Simple) also uses a U.K. number, and provides a local number as an option. So far I've been very pleased with the service, and will be evaluating it again on my trip this year. I'd suggest having a look at several of the travel phone firms, and compare rates and features. Some that you can check are Roam Simple, Call In Europe, Cellular Abroad, and Mobal (there are others but I can't remember them all). While you could buy a SIM when you arrive in Spain, that's not the route I'd choose. Since the majority of your time will be in France, you'd be "roaming" when using the Spanish plan in France. Happy travels!
Posted by
OP
Sacramento, California U.S.A.
10222 posts
Thanks Ken. I definitely don't want to buy a sim card in Spain. For my 4 week trip last year (3 weeks in Italy and 1 week in Germany) I bought a sim card when we arrived in Italy. I had 2 problems with it. First of all, the prompts were all in Italian. I couldn't figure out how to use it for the first 1 1/2 weeks. Secondly, when I arrived in Germany I discovered the phone no longer worked. I had to buy another sim card there. That's why I want to get one that will work everywhere before I go. I have looked at other companies and Telestial seems to be closest to what I need, but I will check those others out.
Posted by
Pittsburgh, PA, USA
2712 posts
I bought a phone and sim card from Telestial a few years ago and am still using both. I got the sim card with a UK phone number that works in multiple countries, and I've used it successfully in several countries. I chose Telestial because I thought their website was the easiest to understand. I can't say the phone calls are the cheapest, but they seemed reasonable, and since I didn't plan to use the phone much, I wasn't that worried about cost. It's easy to reload the card if you set up your credit card online. I've been happy with it.