phone use in Slovenia

We use Verizon. Besides the $100, they offer $10 per day with no charge for the days not using the phone. After years of travel and worrying about the various plans and how much they end up really costing, says the $100 is worth it.

I second Margie's reply.

I used my Dutch Vodafone SIM when I was i Slovenia last fall, as I have been doing for years for my European trips. My phone can't handle eSIMs, but there are a few options for eSIM like Orange and Airalo what will allow roaming in Slovenia. Airalo is data-only I think. I use Google Voice for voice and text while in Europe, and I can use the Google Voice to make free voice calls to US phone numbers (uses WiFi or mobile data). If you had a data-only SIM like Airalo, you probably wouldn't be able to get incoming Google Voice calls like I do, but you can all out.

Thank you, everyone. We will probably go with the Verizon monthly plan.

The basic question, though, is what you need to use your phone for. If you don’t need to receive calls from or make calls to the U.S. using your own cell number, you could consider other options as long as your phone is unlocked.

The internet tells me the iPhone 14 does not have a physical sim tray, so buying a physical sim in country is NOT an option.
1. Using your Verizon plan.
2. Buying an eSim for data only, which I don’t think you want to do.
3. Lane posted yesterday about the new Airalo calls, data, text plans. I will be trying this later this month, but he said you receive an Austrian #. (Again your phone has to be unlocked.)
4. Using an Orange eSim plan and having a French number. It is good for 14 days. (Again your phone has to be unlocked.)

If your phone is not paid for and unlocked, Verizon looks like your only option.

Cynthia,

I think your decision to use the Verizon plan is probably the best solution. It might be an idea to give their customer service agents a call, to determine whether the $300 monthly plan or $10 per day plan will be most cost effective for the two weeks you'll be in the country.

It's probably possible to get an E-Sim in Europe, but it will probably be more trouble than it's worth. Travel with your home number will be a better solution. I've been doing that for many years and while expensive and it's much less of a hassle, although getting calls at 03:00 from some knucklehead who forgot I was in Europe is not nice.

It's a bit puzzling why Apple didn't at least offer the option of an actual SIM card for the iPhone 14 series sold in the U.S. Those same models sold here in Canada do have a SIM.

Hi Cynthia,

I understand that you don't want to rely on the wifi-based apps for phone service, but what if you had a reliable backup? I ask because I will be going to Italy and Slovenia in a couple of weeks, and purchased an eSIM from NOMAD. As of this writing, it costs $9 for 5 GB of data over a 30-day period (that is a sale price), which you can top off if you need more. It is good for 35 countries in case you want to side-trip to another country, and it works with multiple networks in those countries, including those with the widest coverage for IT and SLO. I plan to use Skype for calls, as it can connect to land lines anywhere. However, I also plan to add the $10/day Verizon TravelPass as an emergency backup, activating it only when necessary. BTW, I have no affiliation with NOMAD, and also checked out Airalo and Holafly, which are also highly regarded on the internet. I went with NOMAD based on the sale price and the network partnerships.

What can I say - I'm both paranoid and frugal.

Safe travels to you.

Mark

Mark, thank you for the info about Nomad. I have looked at their website and read some third-party reviews. It seems like a very good option for data usage. We will be in Germany as well as Slovenia, and I'm under the impression that I can purchase a package for both.

I have never used the plastic sim cards, so am slowly trying to absorb the ins and outs of phone usage abroad. Thus, I have a couple of questions whose answers are probably obvious to everyone else:

1. If you have the $10/day Verizon package as backup, what keeps it from being activated when you use Nomad? Do you go through a Nomad app to access the internet? A Verizon rep told me that I could make an international call without charge with a hotel's wifi (for example) if I had the phone in airplane mode and all roaming turned off. Would Nomad still work if those things are turned off? If they have to be turned on, would the Verizon plan kick in?

2. I assume it is impossible to make an international call with Nomad because it doesn't offer a local number, right?

Thank you in advance for helping me get a better grasp on all of this.

Actually, I'd like to revise my earlier post. I did purchase the NOMAD eSim as written. However, based on additional research I am scrapping the TravelPass backup option. According to the post here from the Rick Steves' Technology Tips Forum (scroll down to the entry from user "Sam"), there is a way to force the phone to make calls using whichever data plan you purchase without incurring roaming charges or having to buy an expensive calling plan. I plan to try it out, but YMMV.

Don't have Verizon, not interested in esim, all I want is Slovenia is https://www.telekom.si/en/offer/internet/prepaid-mobile-internet#
Just need to find out where to buy for my unlocked GSM phone I use for travel

We just returned from Munich and Slovenia. I want to add a few comments re: phone use.

1. My husband bought the $100 Verizon plan for his phone. We did not find Verizon customer friendly at all.

Our local Verizon store reps INSISTED that if the plan spanned two billing periods for our home phone, then we would have to pay $200. This seems crazy to me because how could a 30-plan not span two billing periods? When I called the national number, a girl in Asia told me that wasn't true, but whom to believe? We were able to start our plan on the first day of our billing period. Online reps gave us completely different information. A girl in Asia refuted that the point about the cost spanning two billing periods.

We wanted to prepurchase the plan at the store, but we couldn't do that, as the plan would have to start that day, which would span the billing periods. We had to wait until we were traveling to call the national number, which was lucky the first day of our billing period!

We didn't know whom to believe. I'm wondering what others who have bought the Verizon International plan have experienced in terms of price and billing?

Also, you have to specify exactly which countries you will be using it in. If you want coverage for other possibilities, then you need the Global plan. Depending on whom you talk to, this can cost an extra $5, $10, or $15.

It didn't seem to make sense to use the $10/day plan for 15 days of travel, as we knew we would probably use it every day.

1. As a backup I bought the recommended data plan from Nomad for $9 that covered almost all of Europe. This was wonderful, except that it was data only. It worked very well everywhere, even in remote mountainous areas. Whenever possible, I used free wifi, mostly in hotels.

The Nomad reps were fantastic. The eSim installed easily, but I wasn't clear what to do to activate it, so the night before departure, I sent emails to their Help Desk. They responded in minutes! The first two emails prompted more questions from me, but each time I had almost an instantaneous, polite, helpful response, albeit from different reps. One rep posted screen shots showing me exactly what to click on after we arrived in Munich. It was a godsend! I have nothing but praise for Nomad and the price was certainly right!

Cynthia, I'm glad it all worked out with the Nomad eSIM - too bad Verizon was such a PITA. FYI, voice calls are easy with a VOIP service like Google Voice or Skype, even with a data-only eSIM. Google Voice calls are free to US numbers (though it requires mobile data or WiFi), but calls to non-US numbers cost a few cents per minute. Skype costs a few cents a minute to all phones, US and otherwise but otherwise works in a similar way to Google Voice. You need to buy credit in $10 blocks for both I believe.