Using WhatsApp for Italy?

WhatsApp has become the preferred communication tool for most entities throughout Europe, not just Italy

Agree with ChristineH.
I have found it used widely in Europe.

Get used to WhatsApp and start using it, because Europeans don't use regular texts, they use WhatsApp for everything, including making phone calls and conference calls. All you need is an internet connection (with a wifi or cellular data).

Make sure your friends and relatives in the US get it too. WhatsApp is how you can be in contact with them (making phone calls or video calls) with your friends and relatives in the US for free.

It is also important that before you go you get a GoogleVoice number. Using the GoogleVoice app you can make phone calls to landline numbers (including in Italy). With WhatsApp you cannot call landline numbers. Calling a landline number from a GoogleVoice number costs $0.01 (one cent) per minute. You can add money to your google account using a credit card, and also have automatic refills every time the balance goes under a certain amount (mine gets a credit card charge every time my balance goes under $2). You must get GoogleVoice on your phone before you leave the US, because you won't be allowed to do so from outside the US.

Buon Viaggio.

Thanks all! As I've gotten older it has become challenging to make technology shifts. Although I know WhatsApp is not new -- it is new to me. I don't really care for the interface but maybe as I become more comfortable with it I will have a change of heart. I guess I have to get out of my comfort zone. Just glad to have heard back.

I totally understand the idea of being exhausted with each new iteration of tech, but WhatsApp is really seamless. You don't need to learn anything new as it uses phone numbers.

Confirm it is an essential tool for guide, hotel and host communications in Europe.

WhatsApp also uses WiFi so it is helpful to communicate back home as well if you can get your loved ones back home onto it as well. Calls, messages and sending pictures all work great over WiFi so you don't use any cell data when you have WiFi. Note that if you get a physical sim card and an Italian phone number you will need to convert your original account over to your new number. If you use an eSim for data only then you will not need to change anything.

Downside - it is part of the Meta/Facebook environment and I find I get more spam texts - actual texts not inside WhatsApp - when I have WhatsApp installed so be prepared to delete and block some random texts after you install it. (I assume there is somewhere to harvest your number via some underhanded way through Meta data.)

You will probably have to use it and then you can delete it once you get home unless you end up with critical people still linked to your WhatsApp after your trip.

Hope that helps,
=Tod

Did a tour of Sicily and the Amalfi Coast a couple of years ago, and our tour leaders used WhatsApp to communicate with the group.

Just be careful if a hotel (or whatever) is asking you for credit card or other payment info via WhatsApp. Hackers have been able to get into some of the hotel reservation systems and send very detailed messages (with your arrival date, for example) asking for your payment info. Call the hotel directly if this happens. Here's one very recent thread that talks about it, but there are others:

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/tourist-scams/just-received-a-whatsapp-scam-message-asking-me-to-confirm-my-hotel-booking

You definitely need to get Whatsapp, we've been using it since our first family trip to Italy in 2018 and now we use it as our preferred group messaging app, even in the US. One thing that you might find helpful, if you're used to working at a computer and like having a real keyboard etc. you can access your whatsapp account either through your browser or installing the whatsapp app for windows (I assume but can't confirm, there is a version of apple users as well.) I work at a computer for most of my trip planning and I have whatsapp open all the time so I can type on a keyboard, and use my mouse (copy/paste etc, I'm really old school). I still use whatsapp on my phone, and see all the messages on both.

The value of Whatsapp is that it allows both Voice (VOIP) and text communication using internet data, at essentially no cost.

In the US we have become accustomed to unlimited minutes and data (remember the days where you had to stay under some call limit number?), that is much less the norm in most of Europe. Further, for a hotel to call you, or you call them, will incur international calling charges, Whatsapp, doesn't have that.

As a result, Whatsapp has become a primary means of communication, and the preferred for communicating with someone with an international number.

The catch? Both parties must have the app loaded and activated. The ID is just your phone number. You also need data service to use it on demand or for someone to call you, if just messaging, you can get by with using Wi-Fi when you have it.

I have used it in probably about 8 countries, lots of people who let rooms use it as their primary communication method, it is easy and cost efficient for everybody. In your list of travel apps, Whatsapp should be there.

I’ve used WhatsApp to book restaurants in the Puglia region & beyond. And some of my B&B’s from use WhatsApp to ask what time I am arriving or give me instructions (not the scam stuff I’m seeing on recent posts )

Two years ago, our tour guide for Pompeii and our “self guided” bike tour company in Puglia both had us communicate with them via What’s App. Calls and Chats (texts).

Ditto for our “self-guided” bike tour provider in Germany, last year. LATE NOTE: my wife and her buddy in Germany use it to text and send photos; they speak with each other via Zoom.

And it’s how we call a friend in Madrid since Microsoft killed Skype. Ditto for calling our son through our computer in California, when we don’t choose to just use our cell phones.

It’s pretty easy to use and synchs with our contacts.

Yes, as someone who lives in Italy--I communicate almost exclusively via WhatsApp.

Lesson learned. Just back from a six-week visit - two weeks in Lithuania and four weeks in Puglia. My wife has WhatsApp on her phone, but no SIM card. I had the SIM card on my phone, but couldn't load WhatsApp for some reason.

When our Ostuni host failed to meet us, I could call, but all he would say was, "WhatsApp!" It was a little messy.

I use Signal stateside to reach our European family. But for general travel use in Europe, WhatsApp is the way to go.