Google maps

International data roaming can be expensive. You need to check the terms of your plan with Sprint.

Check to see if Sprint has an international plan for sale. Best is to buy a SIM card for one of your phones with data and to make local phone calls.
Last year I paid 30€ For a SOM from store TIM in Italy. Worked great.

Why not ask Sprint directly to ensure you get accurate info?

Definitely check with Sprint. They have a great international plan which is very inexpensive, but you must sign up for it and specify the dates. You do not need to buy a SIM card, you will use the phone you have. You can access Rick Steves audio tours without using data as long as you have downloaded them when you are connected to wifi.

Sprint international 2G data roaming is free, as are all texts. If you want faster speeds, you can pay. However, just download a custom google map for Rome to your phone and you won’t need any data. Just put you phone in airplane mode and use Google maps like normal. If the audio tours are downloaded to your phone you won’t need any data for them either. Play them like you would any song. No charges to worry about.

I used my T-Mobile plan in Europe this summer. I believe your Sprint experience is likely to be pretty similar to mine with T-Mobile. I used Google's MyMaps to build a map before arrival at each major destination. If you use MyMaps, your map resides on a Google server somewhere. That is different from using standard Google Maps in offline mode, with which your map resides directly on your phone or tablet.

In both cases, adding your places to the map is easiest done at home, sitting at a full computer, but you can add additional points to the map from your phone or tablet when you have a Wi-Fi or data connection.

If you choose MyMaps, it's helpful to open the map while you're still at you hotel and have access to Wi-Fi. It can take longer if you need to load the map off a cellular connection. I highly advise having a paper map as well, because there were occasions when my map didn't load immediately. At least once I had a background map but none of my markers for close to half an hour. On a different occasion I had a black screen (no map) with my markers shown, which was funny, but utterly useless. I don't know whether those problems were caused by cellular data/Wi-Fi issues or something going on at the Google server. I assume if you use regular Google Maps offline, you are protected because the map just sits on your phone. I haven't used regular Google Maps offline enough to say absolutely for sure, though.

This year's trip was the first during which I had cellular data available. I very much enjoyed having it, but I confess that 90% of my usage was to read and post on this forum when I was on a long train or bus ride, which I'm sure isn't typical. I did no video-streaming and didn't load a lot of data-heavy webpages. My data usage was between 1GB and 2GB per month. While in my hotel room I used Wi-Fi on a different device (tablet). That activity was a lot more data-intensive, and the tablet statistics showed usage rates between 6 and 8 GB per month. It didn't matter because that was on Wi-Fi, but T-Mobile would not have been happy about that level of usage had it been cellular data. I don't know Sprint's policies in that regard.

Thanks, everyone. Some great suggestions. I am downloading an off line map, and my Rick Steven walking tours, and will use WiFi as much as possible.

If you have good data (buy a local SIM) then Google Maps will work fine. You could also download Here Maps (offline use is better than Google Maps version). Then you wouldn't need any data for navigation.

We were in Italy in July and we also have the Sprint unlimited plan, myself and all three of my teenagers so you know we put it to the test. We had no issues using WiFi at any of our locations and when were were using the 2G coverage, I did experience some slowness when using maps but nothing that serious. I didn't have great coverage on the trains between cities but to me that wasn't a big issue.

It is a great plan and as long as you have the unlimited plan there were no extra charges on our account. If you choose to make a phone call, you will be charged .25 per minute but we had no reason to make a phone call.

As others have noted, you can pay for faster service on a daily or weekly basis but we didn't need it at all.

On another note, my oldest is now in Australia for 6 months and she is using her sprint unlimited plan. We have iPhones and she calls me via FaceTime almost daily and not a single problem or extra charge.

If you have any specific questions, please feel free to PM me.

Sprint has basically the same international roaming plan that T-Mobile has: free unlimited data (throttled to 2G speed, even though your phone will connect to the fastest mobile network it can find), free texting, 25 cents/minute calls.

I used my Sprint phone (when I had Sprint) in Portugal last year for a few days on and off. Data was a little slow at time, especially with Google Maps. I had my Dutch Vodafone SIM with me so I just switched to that - 10 euros for 2GB of data, more than adequate for my 10 day trip. Had it cost a lot more than that, I could have lived with the slow data.

Thanks, mrm1111. That’s what I thought, but since it is our first trip to Europe, I just needed some reassurance. I didn’t think of FaceTime, but that is great to know. I appreciate your input.

You're welcome malambers!

We have Sprint - and never bothered with the hassle of sim cards, etc. That way family and business associated here in the States could just call or text us (texting was free) at our regular number. It was WAY easy.

Our phones worked great in Ireland, Italy and France. Sprint has an international plan and the only cost is a nominal per-minute charge for making or receiving calls with the phone. For each of the trips, we didn't pay more than an additional $10 for using the phones to call directly when we needed to. Call Sprint to confirm your set up. (When we flew home from France, we flew over Scotland, and I received a text from Sprint welcoming me to Scotland!)

You can use What's App, Facebook, etc., but of course you'll need a Wi-Fi connection, for free calls. That's not always convenient if you're trying to contact your significant other and one of you doesn't have Wi-Fi. That said, you'll frequently find yourself in places (hotels, lunch spots, bars) where there is Wi-Fi.

The throttling is a bit of a drag, no pun intended. We simply loaded our desired destination on our nav - Google Maps or Waze - and those worked... Except if we diverted from the route in an area where the Internet wasn't available. But signage for most routes is so good nowadays that we never really got lost. In the big cities, we used Google Maps readily to navigate as pedestrians or public transit users.

Interestingly, sometimes my wife's Google Nav worked and mine didn't, but my Waze worked and hers didn't. No telling why, so we kept both running.

We did get dinged -- despite our diligence -- in Venice returning a rental car (and we only just got the email for a trip we took last May). The navigation took us into the forbidden zone for autos. The rental charge is 45 Euros. We're still waiting to see what the government will charge us.

No need to worry about the audio tours since you'll download those before you go. Speaking of audio tours... I'm a huge proselytizer of Rick's audio tours. And our youngest son who is 23 listened to Rick's Vatican tour and the audio guide from the Vatican. He said Rick's was way better.

Have fun!

I use Whatsapp all the time. I was in Portugal for 3+ weeks earlier this year, had 2G of free data. I used Whatsapp a lot and google maps quite a bit, both for walking and driving. I did use wifi as much as possible, in my hotel room and a lot of restaurants have free wifi too (you may have to ask for the password). In the end I used less than 1.5G of data.

For audio tours, you can download them and keep them on your phone if you have enough storage space.