Traveling to Europe, best option to use phone abroad

[thaKing]

We're traveling to Europe (Germany and Prague, specifically) and I'm wondering about what the best option is for my phone (or our phones) all on ATT. I'm specifically curious about my phone (S22 Ultra) but if you have thoughts on these other, lesser phones (3 iPhones). I can use wifi calling but then I'm 100% limited to areas with wifi and cannot text. Should I opt for the $10/day international plan? What about another European SIM, something to consider? Or is there another option I should be considering?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[AugieTN]

I use to have AT&T and I would get a French SIM card in France, AT&T was very expensive overseas 10 years ago. Later I switched to Google Fi and overseas the data was $10 per GB, which is what I pay in the states for data.

 

[thaKing]

Thanks for the info, but I don't know how that helps *me*.

 

[AugieTN]

Thanks for the info, but I don't know how that helps *me*.

Sorry about that. The easiest route would be the $10 a day international charge. You could get a German SIM card which would save money, but it may change your phone to the German language and you may get messages from the provider in German. I say that because it happened to me in France.

One year in France I had a dual SIM phone, and added a French SIM and turned my AT&T data off. When I got home I had a $60 charge from AT&T for data. I called AT&T and they said it was 2G data probably for voice. I had my AT&T account set to forward all calls to voice mail.

I hope that is more helpful

 

[thaKing]

Definitely helpful. I was going to get the international plan for my phone, but wasn't sure if there was something else I should consider instead. Now to convince everyone else they don't need their phone while there. Haha!

 

[Hadron]

Or you could look for a travel eSIM, since the s22 Ultra should support that - unless ATT locks them out (no experience of US carrier-locked handsets, but best to check first). I've used a data-only eSIM when travelling to places where I would pay roaming charges, and for a fraction of the price you quote here. Of course if someone called me and I answered I'd incur roaming charges, but I told my most regular callers only to call via WhatsApp (so just using data rather than telephony) to avoid that problem.

 

[thaKing]

Or you could look for a travel eSIM, since the s22 Ultra should support that - unless ATT locks them out (no experience of US carrier-locked handsets, but best to check first). I've used a data-only eSIM when travelling to places where I would pay roaming charges, and for a fraction of the price you quote here. Of course if someone called me and I answered I'd incur roaming charges, but I told my most regular callers only to call via WhatsApp (so just using data rather than telephony) to avoid that problem.

I'm almost certain I can use eSIM. So with this option I get data but no calls? Would the eSIM allow for texting? I know I can't text via wifi. If so, I can easily use WhatsApp for my emergency calls via eSIM and leave everyone else waiting for me to return.

 

[Hadron]

It would depend on the eSIM I guess. The data-only ones I use don't include a phone number, so any texting would have to be via a data connection of some sort. I'm sure you can get some with regular telephony too, but that didn't interest me: I'd have to tell people a different number to use for a week, if they sent me a text they'd pay international text prices, just didn't seem worth the effort.

However I very rarely use SMS these days anyway: with MMS being both inadequate and (on many UK tariffs) expensive, while SMS is quite limited, like a lot of people I've moves most of my messaging to third party internet-based services (WhatsApp, Signal etc). So to be honest I never even bothered checking how/whether I could make that work.