Texting between US phones in Europe

plus key and country code and number will work everywhere in the world automatically.

+1 817 555 2292 or similar (let the phone put in its own punctuation and spaces, I just put them for visual - it is a fake number) is how to do it

When I text people in my addy book, I don’t make changes or add anything.

No changes needed to send a text to each other. I just text to their name from my contacts as usual. (I have T-Mobile, so texting is free.)

I'll have to try texting without using the 00 or + prefix on my next trip; maybe your phones are programmed to automatically add them. But if you want to be safe, go into your address book and add the prefix to any number you plan to text while outside your home country. Adding the prefix does not affect calling or texting when not traveling and it guarantees your text will go through over there.

Marcus if all four of you will keep your US cell phone service in Europe (vs. buying European SIM cards as some of us do), you may not have to change anything. Your dialer app may have an "Assisted dialing" setting - my Android phone does - where your phone will try to figure out where you are and add the +1 prefix if needed for calls. Not sure if that same thing applies for texting...but I guess you'll find out when you get there.

If all four of you install WhatsApp, you can communicate with each other without needing to worry about regular calls or texting.

Here in Budapest when I click on a local number from a place I find on Google Maps for instance the number on my phone will pop up starting with 06 ........... I have to manually change that to +36 ............ or the call will not go trough.

To call the US sometimes the address book will give me +1 XXX XXX XXXX some times it just starts with the area code and I have to insert the +1 or it will not go through; maybe it depends on how i entered the number in the address book. (Android)

Use WhatsApp. Much easier.

Bets, agreed when calling friends and quite a few businesses these days.

Yes, use WhatsApp.

WhatsApp requires WiFi access or data.