thinking purchasing a cell phone with sim card when we get to venice in case family emergency back home, call for restaurants, etc.. anyone do this? can you get a phone with internet capability or just get basic, cheapest and bring my iphone(4) with airplane mode on and cell date off and find free wifi) to use for directions or emails??? I cant get phone use on my iphone 4
if a good idea, do we get here before we leave or in venice when we land. where would we go to purchase?
Posted by
Penticton
107 posts
We purchased a cell phone when we arrived in Italy, just at a local store in the first city we visited. The phone (we disabled the internet feature) and card cost us $70 CDN and it worked great for Italian calls and texting. For contacting home, we added a 30 day international texting package on to our existing contract (Telus) for our iPhone 4. We used the phone and our iPod / iPad for Internet access and Skype. Worked like a charm. If anyone from home needed us in an emergency they were asked to text our iPhone or send an email. In the event that we needed to call home, we could use Skype. We never had to call home, email and texting was plenty.
Posted by
Toledo, Ohio, US
11613 posts
I bought an inexpensive TIM phone in Italy a few years ago and buy minutes as I need them. Comes with €5 in minutes, the phone cost about €30. I use my iPad (wifi only) for email and other things.
Posted by
OP
smiththown
68 posts
thank you... Michele, if you brought your iphone 4 and added an international plan for a month, why would you need to purchase a cell phone. for calls. didnt the extra plan on your iphone enable you to call?
Posted by
Pennsylvania, USA
38 posts
Ditto on Zoe's response. Inexpensive phone from TIM store, just add minutes when needed. Also use my iPad for email, etc.
Posted by
Penticton
107 posts
Hi Elaine,
We purchased the plan on our iPhone just so that we could send and receive texts to and from North America. Our Italian phone was only used for calls or texts to numbers in Italy but we it also send and receive texts with the iPhone because the plan on the iPhone was international. The Canadian text plan was primarily placed on our iPhone phone so that family could contact us in an emergency, but it turned out to be quite handy to have a second phone for texting with the Italian phone. Confused yet? It all worked great once we got there.
Posted by
Penticton
107 posts
P.S. ...... Yes, the iPhone plan was an international texting plan only, no voice calls.