International phone

I usually pick up a local SIM card and plan in the first country that I visit. The last couple of yours I’ve stopped in London first. Vodafone UK big value bundles allow roaming into EU countries and Switzerland.

Using a local SIM, you will lose your US(?) number until you put your original card back in. You also need an unlocked phone. Some countries require you to show a passport to complete the registration and purchase.

Turn on roaming when you are out of the home area. So for my Vodafone UK card I turned on roaming data when I went to Switzerland.

Some SIM cards allow free roaming in Switzerland and others don't - so ASK before you assume! EU roaming fees are mostly banned now, but Switzerland is not part of the EU. Some providers like Vodafone in some countries still include free roaming in Switzerland.

I concur with Rocket. Using a local SIM card is the most economic option; wherever you travel. I recommend you purchase a Motorola Moto G5 as an additional phone if your phone is not unlockable. The Moto G5 is <$200 and comes with two SIM card slots.

I would check with your provider. Our last trip through Netherlands, Belgium and France we had free data and good service through Sprint.

Thanks everyone. I'll keep checking with T-mobile US to see if they have any plans for Europe. Anyone tried that? Otherwise, buying the card in first country is the way! I see activation fee and lot of other charges n surprised that it still comes cheaper than taking your US phone.

T-Mobile US offers free unlimited data (2G) in all of those countries, 20 cents/minute calls, and free texting. (Unless you are using T-Mobile prepaid.)

You also need to be on a newer plan from the last 4-5 years like "Simple Choice" not one of their ancient plans you may be grandfathered into. Any newer plan will include this international roaming. You don't need to "enable" anything - just go over there and turn on your phone. Some very old phones (like flip phones) won't work in Europe or won't work well. Newer smart phones should work fine.

Thanks Andrew that was helpful.

Here are the details on T-Mobile's international plan: https://www.t-mobile.com/travel-abroad-with-simple-global

Do make sure your T-Mobile plan works with this plan (scroll down to see the FAQ's with details). As Andrew said, if you have an old plan not eligible for Simple Global, or a prepaid plan (rather than postpaid), you have MUCH higher rates when roaming with T-Mobile in Europe.

I've had terrible service with TMobile for the last two years where we bought the international coverage and then couldn't use our phones during the first few days. Two years ago, we were in Bordeaux, France and couldn't use our cell phones, thank god, I bought my iPad to send out an email to the owners of the apartment we rented. Last year, TMobile promised us we would have international coverage in Croatia but again we could not use our phones when we landed in Zagreb. So infuriating to spend literally 4 hours in your hotel trying to get through to TMobile International Customer Service for help. After speaking to 5 different customer service people (because the calls kept getting dropped) I found a phone engineer who fixed the problem. It seems that we had to be connected to the right tower signal. Anyway, they said you could call collect for international cell phone help but basically we got routed to New Jersey. When we got home, our phone bill was large but after I complained to TMobile they did waive the charge. I really hope you have better service with TMobile because in the past they were good. After returning home, I dropped TMobile and went with Verizon and bought Samsung Galaxy phones. We went this route because Verizon doesn't lock their phone and we are heading back to Europe in September to visit Switzerland and Italy again. I am hoping we can find a place at the Zurich's airport and buy a simcard there to be use. If someone has done this and can recommend a carrier that covers both countries that would be great.

I used T-Mobile three years in a row in Europe (Croatia, Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, etc.) and never had problems like that. But sometimes, you do have to choose a different mobile network than the "default" your phone picked up. T-Mobile is just too expensive for me to use for cell service at home, but I have no complaints at all about service or coverage.

You can only use a Simcard with an unlocked phone, correct?

We have used the Skyroam mobile wifi and thought it was perfect.

"You can only use a Simcard with an unlocked phone, correct?"

Not quite. You can only use a different SIM card with an unlocked phone. Nowadays, all phones have SIM cards, for the 4G LTE service, but if the phone is locked, you cannot put in a different SIM from the one the phone is locked to. For instance, if you have a locked T-Mobile US phone, it will only work with a T-Mobile US SIM.

Phones can be sold locked or unlocked. If locked, you can usually get it unlocked once you have paid it off in full.

We have AT&T phones here in the US, so we use the international plan that's $10/day that you use the phone overseas - you don't get charged on days you don't use it, and the day you do use it is a full 24-hour block of time (so if on a Monday you switch your phone from airplane mode to cell service at 5:00PM, you'll have cell service until 5:00 PM on Tuesday for the $10 daily charge).

I've found it most cost effective since you get the same plan you have in the US traveling with you to Europe - we have unlimited data, so we also have unlimited data in Europe, along with calls and texts. Since I do use data heavily, the caveat that the data use be within my normal usage in Europe is fairly easy (I usually clock in an average 25GB a month), so it's way less expensive than buying a wifi unit and data cards in Europe.

I usually clock in an average 25GB a month

Wow!!! That's more than 10X my monthly usage at home. I use closer to 3GB/month when I travel, using maps on my phone and tethering my laptop on trains or when I don't have good WiFi at the hotel or something. If you truly use that huge amount of data per month and have unlimited data with AT&T, then yes, the $10/day plan probably is a good option for you. But I'm pretty sure your usage is far above average.

Andrew, yes, we use a ton of data which is why all of our plans (both AT&T and our home internet) are unlimited - the cell phone has the potential we'll face slow-downs, the home internet has no hard data caps though. I've not gotten slowed down (probably because we live in an area that isn't congested for use of data), though I often get a nasty-gram text from AT&T when I hit the 16-20GB data use point each month. I consider the $10 a day a steal in Europe given how much data I can use! I do however limit myself and judiciously turn the airplane mode on and off since we go for a month at a time and I'd prefer not to pay $300 for the month....I can time usage (usually, barring unforeseen circumstances coming up) to cut that in half by planning our usage and calling back to the US to be staggered so the phone isn't always on, and use WiFi when it's available on days I'm not connected online.