Question about these portable wireless devices that you can rent for about $10 a day before any discounts and use when traveling. Has anyone used these portable devices and is this better than getting a SIM card or any other options. I have Verizon and it seems their international program is not great. We have iPhones so the plan was only to use wireless calling/messaging. We are traveling just to Madrid and surrounding towns and will have internet in hotel and cafes but is that enough?
Posted by
Washington DC
28082 posts
I have no experience with the type of device you are considering.
I travel with a smartphone and a tablet computer. I have never used cell-phone data, just wireless when I encounter it. Even staying in budget accommodations, it's rare for me not to have decent Wi-Fi in my room. I do read reviews carefully and avoid places with multiple mentions of poor Wi-Fi, but the signal quality can vary if your room is not near the router. I've taken to including a comment about needing "a good Wi-Fi signal" when I make hotel reservations. Perhaps that has helped me a bit.
I've spent 7-1/2 months in Europe over the last two summers, and only very occasionally has my room been a Wi-Fi-free zone so that I've had to use the signal elsewhere in the hotel. Twice the promised Wi-Fi was on the fritz throughout the hotel--once in Rome and once in Dresden (Germany!), but as you know, a lot of cafes have free Wi-Fi service.
You can download maps ahead of time, then your device will use a GPS signal, rather than phone data, to pinpoint your location on the map. With my pre-loaded maps, I haven't felt the need for anything beyond the Wi-Fi I get for free. I do take long trips, however, so I'm more accepting than most travelers of minor inefficiencies.
Posted by
Port St Joe Florida
513 posts
I recently returned from Spain where I used a Spanish sim card (Lebara) for my IPhone which I purchased at a phone store on the lower level of Atocha station. I paid euro 20 for 400 minutes of telephone time virtually anywhere in the world, plus 2 gigs of data. This worked quite well for me.