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Cell for teen

My teen is traveling to Spain, Germany, and Sweden and would like to have a cell for emergency calls and once a week calls home. Is it best to buy something in the States or once my teen arrives in Europe. Is there a "disposable" cell that would work in those three countries? If so, where would he buy one? Thanks.

Posted by
11507 posts

If hes on a school tour wont they help him make emergency calls?

Posted by
179 posts

He won't be with a school tour. He will be traveling solo and staying with friends. So, when he is out and about, he will need his own cell.

Posted by
32362 posts

Pepita,

You could either buy an inexpensive mobile phone in the first country he visits, and use that for the entire trip, or buy a phone from one of the travel phone firms such as iRoam, Cellular Abroad, Telestial or Mobal and have it delivered to your home before he leaves. The latter option would provide him with a working phone as soon as he steps off the plane, so he'd be able to send you a text message straight away to let you know he made it safely to Europe. For the purposes you mentioned, he doesn't need a smart phone, but just a basic model.

The travel phones often have a U.K. number which works seamlessly throughout Europe, and provides post-paid billing (calls charged to a credit card) so he wouldn't have to be concerned with topping up the minutes when they're depleted. Check the websites of the firms mentioned above to see if that might work for you.

If he presently has a phone, the other option would be be to sign up for international roaming with your home cell network. You'll have to check with them to see whether that would work.

Posted by
42 posts

last year when I traveled to England and Belgium with my boyfriend, we found that it cheapest to get a one time plan through our normal provider on one of our phones.it was $30 thru AT&T and provided a reasonable amount of data, unlimited texts and a good rate on phone calls (which we had to use once within 4 hours of landing to address a non-working card at a cash machine). All US companies have a similar option. It was much easier than trying to buy a new SIM card and deal with that after landing, and it's was nice to have the data for unexpected map needs, random Yelp for restuarants/bars, and to text our families immediately when we landed.

On my IPhone which was left on airplane mode the entire trip, I was able to use FaceTime and iMessage to stay in touch completely free of charge. No extra apps needed! We will be doing the same thing for our trip this summer!

Posted by
32362 posts

"On my IPhone which was left on airplane mode the entire trip, I was able to use FaceTime and iMessage to stay in touch completely free of charge."

It's important to note that in order to do that with the phone in "Airplane mode", Wi-Fi would have to be switched on, and those functions would only be available in Wi-Fi areas.

Pepita, how long will your teen be travelling in Europe?

Posted by
5697 posts

We have Mobal (formerly Eurobuzz) phones which came with both a UK number and a US number so people at home can call without international charges. At $0.79 per minute (or per text) they encourage brief outgoing calls, but are great for emergency calls/texts in Europe. Charge goes on the credit card as the time is used.
Is the once-a-week call his idea or yours ? Would you be OK with a text or email (except for emergency) ?

Posted by
179 posts

Thank you to all of you who answered my question.

Posted by
636 posts

Pepita,
There is not much difference either way. My daughter bought a phone here before leaving for Europe and then bought a SIM card after she arrived in Spain. Other students waited to buy one after they arrived and the total difference was about 10-15 euros if the got the cheapest model (not smartphone). NOTE: make sure the phone you buy here is quad band which "I think" is what they use in Europe.

Posted by
32362 posts

Nestor,

"NOTE: make sure the phone you buy here is quad band which "I think" is what they use in Europe."

A quad band phone is designed to use four different frequency bands. Two bands are used in Europe and much of the rest of the world (900/1800) and two in North America (850/1900). Therefore a quad band phone has the necessary frequency bands to function in either area. This only applies to voice & text service, as it gets more complicated with phones that provide data.