Planning to spend about a month in Spain. Have several long, important calls back to the US (about 3 hours’ worth each week). Verizon has a “Travel Pass” option that provides 24 hours of unlimited talk, text and data for $10. Any time I use the phone for anything but Wifi it starts a 24 hour clock and costs $10. I can cover many of my longer calls during one 24 hour period each week and may be able to use skype with wifi for the rest but this doesn’t help for local calls throughout the week (contacting hotels, coordinating with my travel partners etc.
It might be more cost effective to buy a cheap local mobile phone with time on it or get a local sim card for my smartphone (which is unlocked) but I am comfortable with my smartphone as it is. I’d be nervous about relying solely on a cheap local phone or modifying my phone which has a lot of information on it that I want to be able to access. My current thought is to just use my smart phone as it is with Verizon Travel Pass and perhaps buy a cheap local phone with time on it for local calls. Does this make any sense?
If you think I should buy a cheap phone or get a local sim card do you have any suggestions about what company to deal with in Spain. I have read that Vodafone and Movistar are good and that it’s often more economical to buy phones from a large retailer like Carrefour but I don’t know.