Phone use: I used the Verizon Travel Pass for my Iphone. I budgeted this into the trip for $100 since we were in Europe for ten days so I was happy, I managed not to use all ten days! I will end up with $90 added to my bill this month as a result but it was worth every penny. My husband stayed in airplane mode on his phone and then just connected with hotel Wifi when we were in our room. I really liked being able to be connected no matter where we were at all times, especially because I was constantly using Google Maps on the go for the public transportation. I used very little data so I didn’t need to purchase any additional, in fact I carried over almost 3 Gigs into my next cycle after the trip. So I didn’t even use any of the 4Gs that I pay for in my regular plan. Time to downgrade to 2Gs a month now that I think you can still carry over on that amount. In case it is helpful, Google Maps uses very little data.
Posted by
OP
227 posts
I wanted to add a couple more comments to go with my post; I took over 600 photos on my iPhone 7 and my husband took our little Canon camera. I had set up a photostream before I left and invited all of my friends and family so they could follow along. I edited photos and posted as often as possible. Since we had three travel days on trains for a couple of hours each, that gave me a good window of time to work on it.
Posted by
Central Valley, California
293 posts
What's a photostream, and can I set one up on my Android ?
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OP
227 posts
I think Photostream is exclusive to iPhone because my friends with Androids couldn't even be invited to the stream. But basically, it is through the Photos app that is on all Apple devices. You create a new photo stream, give it a title, invite all your friends and family you want to be able to see it by text or email, and then when you have pictures to add to the stream, you go to "share", choose the pictures and post with comments about what the pictures are. Maybe android phones have something like this or you can get an app that would do the same thing. It was nice because my invites were commenting on pictures I posted throughout the trip and I could also answer questions or comment back.
Posted by
Washington DC Region, USA
7049 posts
Just curious...was it difficult to just stay on wi-fi exclusively, thereby not needing a $10/day data plan at all? What data uses made the extra $90 worthwhile....was it only the public transport?
Flickr supports photo streams that can be easily shared via a link. Where do you upload your photo albums?
Posted by
OP
227 posts
As far as the extra $90, I didn't have to depend on being somewhere anytime I needed to be connected, especially when walking around using google maps or being in a subway or train station trying to figure out which train. I probably could have connected with the Wifi available in each train station or ducked into a cafe or something but I would have constantly been having to connect to a bunch of wifi hotspots with the security warning showing up to boot. And sometimes the wifi signals are so bad that you wait and wait. Then it still may never stop spinning! There are many times when I have turned wifi off and used my cellular only because I was waiting for so long that I knew I was never going to get the information I was waiting for. That happens when I am home too, for instance if I am on a college campus where I do some free lance accompanying and I am on the guest wifi, it never works.