Phones in Scotland & England

A SIM card is HOW you buy minutes - it's what gives you your number. If your phone is a GSM phone and uses a SIM card, it must be unlocked in order to replace the SIM with a European one. If your phone is not a GSM phone (an "old" phone probably isn't) it won't work in Europe, anyway. If you have an unlocked, GSM phone, just buy a SIM card when you arrive. If you have anything else, your best bet would be to buy a phone once you arrive.

Lynn, check out the recent articles in the New York Times Travel section from this month. There are several on phones and Europe. Pam

I simply would wait until you get there and go to any mobile phone shop and they can sell you perfectly adequate phones for as cheap as about 10 pounds for the phonethey won't work back home, but will work in other parts of the EU. Carriers would be: http://www.t-mobile.couk http://www.vodafone.co.uk/personal/index.htm http://www.o2.co.uk/
http://www.orange.co.uk/ These carriers also have mobile broadband sticks for laptops that would be less expensive than relying on hotel connections in more expensive hotels as well. One major other point is to stress to the representative when buying that you will be using it for international calls as well. There are sometimes codes they can text that will save you money!

When we were in Scotland last year, we bought a cheap phone at Tesco. Tesco is a huge grocery chain in the UK. But not all Tesco's have a phone department - check their website to see which ones have phones.