I don’t get how people go abroad and don’t just get a local sim. In most countries, a travel sim is something between 20 and 40 bucks. In my opinion, that’s pretty essential.
As a non European, prepaid sims in Europe are complicated. Some companies won’t sell sims to foreigners, some have little to no roaming. Some have activation fees that double the price.
Some examples: in Germany you need to do a video call to activate your sim, in Italy most providers require you to have an Italian tax number to buy a sim. In Romanian most of the plans have a paltry 1 GB of roaming.
Also most of the SIMs geared toward tourists don’t allow roaming.
I’m Canadian now but kept my Hungarian SIM, still paying it to this day after seven years. It’s 9EUR/mo for some paltry amount of data, but mostly just using it for online services that require a Hungarian or European phone number for MFA. I just bought extra data that counted as EU wide roaming data when I last visited.
However the options for my wife were very limited as a non-EU traveller. I think it was €30 or something for ~5GB of data usable in Hungary only and limited to ten days (we stayed for 14) and added as an eSIM with the help of an app/website. It was not transferable to other EU member states, and this was one of the best deals we could find that did not require us to go to a physical store location. This included us checking offers for prepaid SIMs from the major providers (Vodafone / -Mobil / Yettel)
I don’t get how people go abroad and don’t just get a local sim. In most countries, a travel sim is something between 20 and 40 bucks. In my opinion, that’s pretty essential.
Extended layover. Not going to buy a SIM for a day in Lisbon.
Eh, guess so. I just never go for this extended layover kind of deal.
And, because I’m European, I do not even need a different sim for the whole of Europe. Unlimited data.
As a non European, prepaid sims in Europe are complicated. Some companies won’t sell sims to foreigners, some have little to no roaming. Some have activation fees that double the price.
Some examples: in Germany you need to do a video call to activate your sim, in Italy most providers require you to have an Italian tax number to buy a sim. In Romanian most of the plans have a paltry 1 GB of roaming.
Also most of the SIMs geared toward tourists don’t allow roaming.
I’m Canadian now but kept my Hungarian SIM, still paying it to this day after seven years. It’s 9EUR/mo for some paltry amount of data, but mostly just using it for online services that require a Hungarian or European phone number for MFA. I just bought extra data that counted as EU wide roaming data when I last visited.
However the options for my wife were very limited as a non-EU traveller. I think it was €30 or something for ~5GB of data usable in Hungary only and limited to ten days (we stayed for 14) and added as an eSIM with the help of an app/website. It was not transferable to other EU member states, and this was one of the best deals we could find that did not require us to go to a physical store location. This included us checking offers for prepaid SIMs from the major providers (Vodafone / -Mobil / Yettel)