Teenager and cell phone in England and France

Marie,

Your question seems a bit ambiguous? Some additional information would be helpful.

The first point to cover would be whether or not your Son's cell phone will even work in Europe. Which network is he with?

If he has a cell phone which will operate in Europe, he can continue to text message however the cost will be higher than at home and you'll have to be prepared to pay the bill!

E-mail is a good way to stay in touch using internet cafes.

Could you provide some further details?

Cheers!

He is our nephew. Will check to find out what his cell phone is on. He is forever on it. I want to tell him he needs to leave his cell phone at home. But maybe I am wrong? His mother would get the bill --- so don't want to suprise her.

Get a French and/or English prepaid SIM and an inexpensive tri/quad band phone (pick one up used) so that the costs are known and less than using his home phone/service while roaming.

However, email is a lot cheaper if the internet is free. Could be a lot more if he has to pay at internet cafes.

Unless you are also going to have a cell phone and would use these to "keep up" with each other, I suggest you have him leave it at home. You want him to focus on the trip- not his friends back home. This should be a wonderful experience for him and he doesn't need to focus distracting things like a cell. One or two brief visits to an internet cafe (or using a free computer in some hotels)should suffice.

I would definitely encourage him to leave the phone at home and email instead. Perhaps you could treat him to the occasional phone card during the trip if he is getting homesick. I often see tourists wandering around beautiful/interesting areas, but their attention is purely on their phone. I can't help thinking they will look back with regret later on.

Thanks for all your replys. He is going to leave his phone home. Liked the idea of a phone card and also, since I am bringing my laptop, he will be able to email.