Cell Phone Service

You should be able to - you will just be paying whatever rate Verizon charges for international use.

Thank you. Was the cell service decent?

My suggestion is to check with Verizon directly. Every carrier is different, obviously. We have T-Mobile, and we can make or receive international calls for a nominal charge, as well as text and surf the Web for free with our Android phones. Of course, the other challenge is to be in places that have service.

At a minimum, if you have internet and your phone enables wifi calling, ensure your settings are for wifi calling, and you can make calls that way.

Also, WhatsApp is internet based, and enables you to talk (and see the person) or text... We just got off a 50 minute phone with our daughter in Sicily... And we were in a moving car throughout the call... The twist is the people you want to connect with also need the app on their phones.

It'll work just fine, and Verizon seemed to have good coverage in the areas we visited last month, but you'll first need to check with them to see which of their international plans would be the best fit for your particular circumstances.
The Verizon website lays all this out pretty clearly, and we found the chat feature to be particularly helpful in answering questions.

Here's a link that will help - https://www.verizon.com/plans/international/

FWIW, I have Verizon and when I traveled to Germany for a month earlier this year, I opted for an eSIM data plan. It was very easy to use and only cost me $20 for 30 days with 5GB. You must have an unlocked phone to use this, though.

You can definitely use your iPhone 12 and an international plan with Verizon. Network speed will be slower than you're used to, and you may like to sign on to any public WiFi available when you're in a restaurant or a museum/visitor site for any length of time. That said...

I have not traveled much in my young life, and I thought Verizon's international plan was probably the "easiest" route for my infrequent business and personal trips. My daughter will be attending university in Scotland next year, and I have learned a LOT about saving some money on the phone stuff - not just for her use, but for my husband and me when we travel to visit her. Last year on a 1-week trip, we spent over $100 using our $10/day international option "judiciously" on 3 phones while sharing through a hotspot. It was a pain, and terribly inefficient.

Your phone has a "dual SIM" option. That is, you can have a US SIM (Verizon) in one slot, and a different carrier's SIM in the other slot. One of your SIM slots is an eSIM. For my husband and me, I spent 15 minutes on the phone with Verizon and moved our US SIM to eSIM on both phones. It's easiest to do this with 2 phones - you talk to Verizon on one phone while you tap buttons and restart 2 or 3 times on the other phone.

When we get to the EDI airport this September, we will go to a WH Smith store, and purchase physical SIM cards. I understand the employees there can install for us and we can make sure everything is working properly before we leave. In the future, I may be confident enough to buy a SIM card from a vending machine at the airport (say, on a business trip) and install it myself. I know it's not hard - I'm just thinking I'll be muddled with jet lag, and it would be easier to let someone else do it.

Depending on where you're visiting in Scotland/the UK, GiffGaff may also be a good option (GiffGaff is a virtual network that uses the O2 network - a major network in the UK). You can order a free SIM card to be delivered to your US address before your trip, and set it up in advance. I DON'T recommend buying anything off Amazon - seems like there are resellers oflloading "old technology" that may not work when you arrive.

For now, a lot of UK carriers allow use of their data in the EU, and vice versa. So you can get a lot of value out of a SIM card that costs only 10 or 20 GBP.

Scotland is a very large and spread out land, with considerably more livestock and birds than people, except in the central belt.

Mobile phone towers are usually erected where there are concentrations of people. Other areas, even some rural but populated areas are "notspots".

If you will need reliable phone coverage in rural areas it is best to check coverage maps.

Needs for phone are so different. There has been a lot written lately in the Technology section about options. I am here now and have used an Orange Holiday eSim (not recommending this for other reasons, but coverage was fine) and am currently using a data only eSim from Airalo (coverage way up on Mull, Skye, and Lewis & Harris is fine, as well) But neither of these options are good if you need to make calls to the U.S. while you are here and just want to pay for your Verizon International plan.

The Giffgaff thing
As well.as good UK packages if you check out the international rates think it's 3 p a minute to US landlines and mobiles.

We used GiffGaff to avoid what I consider outrageous data costs with my carrier. I actually considered switching to Verizon before the trip but their international data rates were also terrible. With Giffgaff, we paid L15 for more data than you can use, even using Maps with abandon. You might need a bigger plan if you're planning on streaming movies every night.

Coverage is another matter. Large areas of Lewis, Orkney, and Shetland have shaky or no data. Calls are a little better, but there are dead spots.

I'm not sure you can find a lodging or restaurant that doesn't have great wifi.

The US is way behind on the internet, at least for rural Oregon.