Long term travel in EU, Sims or Global Plans

We always do this and it irritates some people but you do know that you are limited to 90 days in the Schengen zone. The UK and some of your other country are outside the zone so you should OK with some planning. Just keep some record should the question come up.

I have that covered. I'll only be in the Shengren countries for 90 days.

A few thoughts.....

• If you plan on using other SIM cards in your phone, the phone MUST be unlocked. I wasn't sure if this is what you meant by "fully paid"?
• In order to keep data costs at a minimum, I'd suggest lining up hotels, transportation options and so on using your Laptop when you have Wi-Fi available. Leave the cellular data blocked on your phone unless absolutely required.
• For travel in the U.K. and all over Europe, you could also consider a SIM from one of the travel phone firms such as Roam Simple, Cellular Abroad, Telestial, Mobal or EuroBuzz. There are others but these are the ones that come to mind. Many of these use a U.K.-based number and have post-paid billing (calls charged to a credit card), so no concerns about having to top-up. Check their respective websites for details and costs.
• One point to note with travel SIM's is that they often only have 30 day plans for data. For travel longer than that, you'd have to purchase another data plan or avoid data use for time in excess of 30 days. I don't believe there's a limit for voice and text plans, but you'd have to check that with each carrier.
• You may find service in Croatia a bit "erratic". I had problems with cell connections when I was there last September. I had no problems in Slovenia or Bosnia, so I'm assuming that the Croatian cell networks require a "tune-up".

I just recently returned from a trip to Europe and I picked up a 3 Mobile (http://www.three.co.uk/) sim card. They have it on a vending machines at Heathrow airport with other mobile companies sim cards. For 20 British pounds you get unlimited data in the UK and 25 gb of data in a few countries in Europe. The price also includes around 300 mins and txt. I recommend using them for the pay-as-you-go option (which I did) or sign up for a monthly plan with them. The data coverage I had in London was excellent and it had good coverage in Florence and Rome.

You probably know a lot more than me but I just wanted to say I arrived in France this week and bought a SIM card from a major chain of cell phone stores called Orange. They were very helpful but I was shocked to find out I am assigned a French phone #. The salesman insisted it works country by country so when I leave France I will have to get yet another SIM card and phone #. This doesn't make sense to me as none of the online research I do ahead of time mentioned having to change your #.what are you supposed to do I giving hotels your contact # when you book in advance???
Is I asked my cell phone co ahead of time and they said my phone # would remain the same. So either they misinform me or else Orange misled me.
Anyway your Verizon price sounds very reasonable compared to what Orange charged me.

epltd,
The SIM card is tied to the phone number and service provider, think of it as the equivalent of the phone socket in your home. If you plug your home phone into a socket in your neighbours house that phone is now on his number, and on his bill.
"but I was shocked to find out I am assigned a French phone number" - If you buy a SIM card in France it will have a French phone number. You can use that card in other countries and it will still have the same French phone number. All SIM cards bought in European countries work in all other European countries (and usually also outside Europe), but higher charges apply, this is called "roaming". If you want to keep your original US number you need to use the US SIM card you took out of the phone and you will be billed by your US provider.

I think there was some language confusion here, what the salesman probably meant was that if you wanted a number from another country (Spain, USA, ...) you would have to buy the SIM card in that country.

Orange is one of the major phone networks and operates in many countries in Europe.

The French registered SIM will work throughtout europe, and remember if the hotel calls you they pick the tab up, even if the credit runs down to zero.

What to watch for, I assume you bought a package and while you might be able to call US for a few cents from France with the "french" SIM,take that SIM over into another Eu country and while inter EU calls are capped,calls to US are not and could be $s a min.

So here's an update. After considering how I will be using my devices, I've decided to go with a T-Mobile plan. I'll keep my Verizon plan active, buy a SIM card for $15 and add their $50 per month plan. While in the US, I'll get 1 gig data @ 4g and any thereafter @ 2g. Basically unlimited data. Voice and text are unlimited in the US and .20 per min out of US. I'll use my phone as a hot spot for my tablet and as I don't plan to make many phone calls, I should be set. They don't offer coverage in 9 countries I'll be visiting, but I won't be spending the night in 4 of them, and 3 are tiny (Monoco, Andorra, & Lichtenstein) and are surrounded by covered countries. for the other two (in the Balkans), I've found listings for very inexpensive hotels so I should be set. BTW, my husband and I are in our early 70s and are making this trip with only 1 carry on each. I'll have a purse and he'll have a small backpack. This is our 51st wedding anniversary and also our first honeymoon and we intend to enjoy every minute of it, even the "unexpected" parts! I'll send an update after I return and report how the phone situation worked.

" I'll use my phone as a hot spot for my tablet "

Make sure the particular T-Mobile plan you have allows this in the countries you will be in. Mine doesn't allow this in the US without paying additional fees; more expensive plans do include this feature in the US, but I don't know about abroad.