I guess its time to get some input and reconsider my phone situation.

Two Phones
• I travel solo most of the time. If I lose my phone I am in a world of hurt, so a backup phone is essential. I can put it in the same pouch as my passport and extra credit card for emergencies. A network connection isn’t an absolute necessity, but it would be nice.
• Right now I have a European phone with Telekom (T-Mobile), but that’s because I live in Europe right now. But that could change.

Hi Mr. E, Good topic. My needs are similar but different. I can address the backup phone requirement:

I agree completely that the darn phone is so essential, that a backup is needed. When my wife and I buy new (used) phones, the old ones become backups, so we have a few. For the backup phones, I tried a few low cost providers, and the cheapest was Ultramobile. You can only buy the sim card from Ebay. Mine cost $13 with a $3 credit. Activating was easy. Then you add money to your "wallet" (credit card or Paypal). It's a true Pay As You Go plan, and every month, $3 is deducted from your wallet. You get 100 minutes, 100 texts, and 100 mb. data per month. That's good enough for my backup phone. I put one backup phone in my wife's vehicle, and one in my vehicle. For $6/month, I have two working backup phones.

For international travel, I bring my backup phone also. It's a dual sim phone (Galaxy S9). For $25 I bought an Esim card from 5ber, put it in the second sim slot (Ultramobile in slot 1). Then I bought an Esim from Roamless. It's also Pay As You Go, and works in 202 countries (I've seen the list of 202). I added $20 to it with a credit card. Data only, and it's $2.45/Gb. in Hungary and most countries.

The Ultramobile, being owned by Tmobile, works in Telecom's 214 countries, although roaming calls and texts are not free. I could use it for Wifi Calling calls, using data from Roamless. So I think I've got the backup need covered.

Another backup calling option I use, is to have a Google Voice number for each phone. I could use it with Wifi or Wifi Calling, anywhere in the world. I could transfer my "normal" Tmobile number to Google Voice, but I don't want to do that yet, as my Tmobile account is grandfathered into a $35/month Magenta plan.

I also agree that doing 2FA is essential for you. You can't use a Google Voice number for 2FA, but you could use a cheap Ultramobile number for 2FA, or email in some cases.

As I like to say, "It's a math problem" for you. Data is getting cheaper, and other esim providers are cheaper for data than Roamless, if you were to use an esim for your normal data use. Oh yeah, the Roamless sim gives me a London I/P address, so that wouldn't work for you. When shopping for Esims, it might not be easy learning what I/P they would be from. Others here know more than me about VPN's to change your I/P.

Maybe a bit of the above might fit into your new plans. Best wishes with your quest.

Small thought - you don't need a US Sim card to get a US IP address. Subscribe to a VPN
service, for which the app can reside on one or multiple devices, and you can access the
internet through servers in multiple countries.

If you don't intend to access US-only sites very much, but need the capability, Windscribe
offers 10GB free VPN access per month.

If you think you can get rid of one of the phones, you will have some additional $$$ headroom
to perhaps upgrade one of your plans.

I know that your sig file says Texas and Hungary, but, when you refer to calling home, where is
home? 😀

I'm sure you're aware of this, but, Google Fi is seamless and hassle-free. If you have the unlimited
plan, you get worldwide calling and unlimited data for $65 a month, and you can get a very nice
smartphone for free if you are a new subscriber. I am sure there are some gotchas given your
set of needs, though.

Both of you. Thank you. It's a start.

There is a flaw to my system. In September, when I land in D.C., my US phone will quit working the minute I log into a US network. I've been out of the US too long (2 years). It's happened before. Can't be fixed online. I will have to go to a TMobike store, and they will have to make a phone call to someone to get it turned back on. A hassle.

I forgot about the Tmobile phone being shut off for too much roaming... It makes me wonder if an UltraMobile plan would also do that, since it's part of Tmobile. That would need to be determined, and that would be harder to learn, since a brick and mortar Tmobile store wouldn't help with Ultramobile.

The good thing is they don't turn it off until you log into the US network..... or so it seems. So I keep the use to a minimum here. It's my "home phone" stays on my desk with the network turned off for weeks. Just wifi which still receives calls and texts, so it okay. But worked for a week in Ukraine, a week in Bosnia, a week in Germany, a week in Malta and a week in Australia just fine.

And i have done 3 week trios out of the US with no problem. 2 months out of the US got it cut last time. I'm guessing 2 years will too.

The good thing is they don't turn it off until you log into the US network..... or so it seems. So I keep the use to a minimum here. It's my "home phone" stays on my desk with the network turned off for weeks. Just wifi which still receives calls and texts, so it okay. But worked for a week in Ukraine, a week in Bosnia, a week in Germany, a week in Malta and a week in Australia just fine.

As an American working and living in Germany I put some thought into this before I came over, this time. For quick trips, 2-3 weeks, before I just went to my carrier and had them add me to their international service. That worked fine, best when I could access wifi, and I did this for years all over the EU. In the middle east I just bought a cheap phone and sim and used that, but I was there for more than a month at a time.

What I have now is Verizon and their international plan, which I pay $92/mo for, unlimited data. I also have an esim for Telecom which costs $45/mo with a German number. The Telecom line works everywhere I've been in the Eu over the past 2 years, and it lets me know I'm covered every time I cross a country border. The Verizon line just works, all the time. So, when dealing with the USA, which is 1-2 calls a day, more often texts, etc, I use Verizon. For all the local business, and for online orders, service calls, keeping in touch with people in the EU, I use Telecom. May not be the cheapest way to do things, but it ALWAYS works.

All of this is on a 4 year old iPhone.

I do find it helps if you set the priority for each contact to one service or the other. But for apps like Waze, or searching Chrome, or checking on a flight, it really doesn't matter. I do have to be a bit selective between US, UK, and German Amazon.

I looked quickly at Mint Mobile, which looks to be a pretty good deal. They offer 30-day international roaming without data for an additional $5 per month. Paired with a data-only eSIM in a dual-SIM handset, this seems to be pretty economical for long-term travelers like Mr E. Their US plans can be as low as $30/month.

This stuff fascinates me.

I am sort of set in my ways and I dont mind paying a little more to have nothing to mess with. But if there is somehting out there that I have overlooked ... just time to ask.