Next month I’m going on a 2 week tour of Europe (Rome, Prague, Salzburg, Vienna, and Garmisch (near Munich)). Mostly 3 and 4 star hotels have been booked for our group.
I’ve not been to Europe for ten years. Come to find out, my cell phone service provider, Verizon, does not cover Europe at all. I could Skype or email but that would mean bringing my laptop (my sole other electronic device), which I was hoping to avoid doing; it’s heavy, valuable, and there will be almost zero leisure time to do anything else with it. Plus, apparently, hotels in Europe charge briskly for wifi (the more expensive the hotel the more likely that is). Except Turkey! Where I won’t be going.
What would be the very cheapest realistic way to briefly touch base with my family every day or three?
Unfortunately there’s no CDMA networks in Europe, so your Verizon phone is about as good as a brick.
Can you buy a cheapo prepaid AT&T or T-Mobile (or any GSM) handset? Some have a feature that allows you to add cash to them via the web. Once you get back you can sell it on ebay or whatever.
Many hotels have public internet terminals in the lobby, and internet cafes are ubiquitous, too. I don’t think it’s necessary to carry your own equipment if all you want to do is send e-mails.
When I went three years ago Verizon loaned me a Motorola ZC6 that worked in Spain, England and France. I returned it when I got back, and only had to pay for my calls which was just under $100 for the entire month of August. I would ask about that.
The transition is to LTE which is based on GSM standards, so I think you’re mostly correct. While LTE is not available in my city yet (allegedly being built now) my current Sprint phone (CDMA 3G and LTE ready) is the first one I’ve owned in 15 years that came with a SIM card. I don’t know a whole hell of a lot about mobile phone communication standards, but LTE implementations seem to be not as compatible as one would hope a technology standard could be. Time will tell, I suppose.
“The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.” -Andy Tanenbaum
To the second, the phones themselves work; the pricing isn’t intended to cover roaming and any individual operator may be local, so it’s probably better to get local refills (many supermarkets and convenience stores provide those) than pay for a lot of minutes in the country of purchase - you’re not really purchasing “minutes”, you’re putting in some credit that will go much faster on roaming.
Most hotels have a computer or two with internet access for their customers, and most also have free wi-fi in the lobby (they give you the password).
Beyond that, like others have said, certain US phones work just fine in Europe. I have AT&T, and on my last 2 trips to Europe, my phone’s just picked up some local carrier and I could call just fine (albeit with some hefty international roaming charges).
What we did was get some kind of international texting plan, and basically did a combination of texting our relatives and using the hotel computers to check and send emails, other than the obligatory “We’re here and we’re fine.” quick calls to our elderly parents.
Whatever you do, don’t use the hotel phones. They are usually ridiculously expensive for anything but very, very brief local calls. But you can give your friends and family the hotel phone numbers and have them forward the call to you. This usually won’t incur any charge on your hotel bill - check with the staff. Remember to give your room number to your family - the front desk staff will often refuse to forward calls if the caller doesn’t know the room number.
If you want to buy a local disposable phone, remember to check with the staff about the activation terms. Depending on the country and their telecommunication laws, you may be required to register your phone number by form before it is activated. Since you won’t want to buy one per country, you’ll also want to find an operator that allows transferring funds to the card online.
thank you everyone who replied. It looks like I will get there & decide what to do. Probably use the hotel computers to send emails. Last tour someone in the group made their own laptop available for quick emails, so that might work – or borrow a phone from a tour member for brief calls. It’s only 12 days and all I want to do is touch base with my family.