Seeking a roaming free sim during international Tour

isn't this the same question you just asked and got answers for?

You don't want a "roaming free SIM"! That would be a SIM which does not work in other countries. You want a SIM with roaming,

Katewood,

I know what you meant. You want a SIM card that does not charge roaming fees, right? In previous threads I was told roaming is 25 cents a minute in Europe if that is your int'l travel plans.

EuroBuzz www.eurobuzz.com is a SIM card/cell phone plan I am going with on my 2015 trip. The company's SIM card will work all over Europe. These are the features as I understand them.

1. You are chg'd 79 cents per min on phone calls & 79 cents per outgoing text. Incoming texts are free. No roaming fees!

2. You are given a USA phone number so you can be reached by ppl in the States AS WELL AS a European phone number. Those #'s are yours to keep for future trips.

3. OPTION 1 - SIM cards cost $9.

4. OPTION 2 - cell phones You can purchase 1 cell phone (ready to go when you land in Europe) for $29; 2 for $39 at this time from Eurobuzz. When you come home, put the phones away until your next trip.

Here is the most recent review I have seen on the forums & the recommendations go back to 2010.

Posted by Eileen
Texan in CA
04/19/14 06:15 PM
3666 posts

We really like our EuroBuzz phones and service. They worked very well (and as advertised). Great battery time.
I haven't used the phones in two years, but when the expiration date on my credit card was expiring recently, EuroBuzz sent me an email so I could send them the new expiration date - very helpful for me.
This is the same company as Mobal - Mobal is for worldwide usage, and EuroBuzz is for Europe, only. Just read the website for the info . . .
We made calls within Europe, to the USA, and texted each other - all calls, esp. to the USA, were very clear. Billing to our credit card was as expected, and showed up on the very next billing cycle.
We were very pleased with everything. Yes, with more effort you may spend a tad less with some other solution (depending on your current phone, where you're traveling to, etc.), but this was an effortless and inexpensive way to go for us. And...my expensive phone stayed at home ;-)
Remember - you can't use this from the USA, but of course you can charge it at home before travel.

(Part of EuroBuzz email to me.)

If you've got any further questions about the EuroBuzz service then you can contact us by the following ways...
Read our FAQs at www.eurobuzz.com/europe-cell-phone/
Call customer services toll-free at 888-792-7647
Email customer services at [email protected]
We hope you have a great trip whatever you decide,
The EuroBuzz team

P.S. Don't forget you get a 60-day money-back guarantee with EuroBuzz, so why don't you try it yourself first, and then decided whether you want to keep it?
Just visit www.eurobuzz.com/europe-cell-phone/ or call 888-792-7647 to order.

My 2-cents Worth

Traveling to Hungary and had similar questions. Here are two responses from that thread.

"I've tried a couple of "world" SIM plans over the years. Some worked ok voice call-wise, some involving callback systems were pretty horrible.

One thing they all seemed to have in common though was pretty complicated billing often to the point of being inscrutable. I never found one of the world SIMs plans that I was really happy with on the data side, between either having issues reliably connecting or having to studiously pay attention to what carrier and mode the connection was using and not just the country I was in.

With world SIMs you typically get assigned a non-US number. (I think you get an Estonia number with TravelSim). So, just like having a local SIM, while receiving texts and calls might be free or inexpensive for you, contacts in the US might not like what they have to pay to text or call an Estonian number."

And as for a preferred approach. T-mobile has a "POST" paid account $50/month that allows free texting and data in 120 countries. Voice is $.20/minute. The T-Mobile accounts are either pre-paid or post paid. The latter requires they run a credit check on you.
MFP's, complete comment:
"Originally Posted by dberke :

MFP::
I went this route, buying local SIMs over my last decade+ of international travel.

In some countries with some carriers going the local SIM route can be straightforward, quick and inexpensive. Hong Kong and New Zealand are good examples -- they speak English and it takes all of 5 minutes.

Other countries can be a complete pain though. There are airports where only top-up/refill cards are sold but not SIMs for new prepaid accounts. Or you end going from shop to shop when they don't have the nano / micro / mini type of SIM your phone takes for the carrier you want and don't have a SIM adapter or cutter. Or you have to wait in line to be served. Or then wait more to be served by the only one in the shop who speaks English, barely. Or you try to explain to the sales person the prepaid plan you researched and want while they try to explain in broken English why they don't have it or can't sell it. For amusement you can try switching to a 3rd language both of you speak poorly.

In many countries carriers are required to ask for your passport and put you through a registration process. There's nothing like spending an extra 15-20 minutes watching a shop person try to figure out how to transliterate your info to Bulgarian cyrillic or puzzle over how to enter your zip code or whatever in their computer's data entry forms.

In some countries with some carriers and plans, while you might leave the shop with a phone ready to make voice calls, you might not have the data access you want. Some magically autoconfigure with certain phones. But others might require either the shop person or you to manually configure things. Some can take minutes or hours before the data service starts working. Some require you to connect to a website and go through some more hoops before the data plan service will work on your device. And in some situations all of the aforementioned must be endured.

Then when you travel to the next country, you might have to do it all over again, since roaming with that SIM isn't the good deal you had in the first country.

T-mobile US now has relatively inexpensive plans that .. some 120 countries. You land in country X, turn your phone on, it works, you get your texts and FB updates with your friends' latest cat photos.

Calls in those 120 countries are a flat 20 cents a minute, but you can typically use Google Talk/Hangouts, Skpe or the VOIP equivalent to avoid that if you want. Best of all is these T-mobile plans don't have early termination fees or even duration commitments for that matter. If it doesn't work for you, you can just cancel it.

There's quite a lot of companies out there offering international SIM cards or data roaming SIMs. I've used GO-SIM for years, they've been around for a long time and I find this is a good indicator of quality - they've got the connections and the infrastructure to keep offering lower rates and better deals. Plus the service is good. Some of these newer companies are subsidiaries of larger providers and they don't often last as long and are not as well supported.