How to Use Your Phone Abroad (and not end up with a $1000+ bill)

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Every time this question gets asked on Facebook, there are a million people jumping in to rave about how they love giving $10/day to Verizon for the privilege of using the phone plan they already pay for.

Uhhhh, as someone often living on an average of $40/day TOTAL, we are not working with the same budget. So how can you use your cellphone abroad without handing over hundreds of dollars to the phone companies?

T-Mobile or Google Fi

For trips <3 months the best and easiest thing you can do is switch to either T-Mobile or Google Fi. Both have affordable options for unlimited data almost anywhere in the world at no additional cost to your monthly service.

Where things get tricky is when you’ll be traveling for longer than 3 months, as either service may cut off your roaming data, leaving you with 0.

E-sims

I used to think E-sims were the greatest thing ever to be invented. When my Google Fi finally stopped working a few months into my trip around the world, I was able to jump on wifi and download one for a few bucks to get back on the internet– something I desperately needed for my Map apps as I was walking the Camino de Santiago.

Since then, they’ve been really hit or miss. I’ve downloaded some and had them ready to go as I crossed borders on overnight buses, just to spend the rest of the bus ride frantically trying to message customer service on shoddy wifi for literal hours and eventually having to request a refund.

You can only use an e-sim if your phone is unlocked. If you’re paying monthly for it, this may not be an option, but you can always call your phone service provider and ask. Most e-sims also don’t come with a local phone number. You can often get away without one, but occasionally certain apps (like local ridesharing) will require you to have a local number.

If I were only planning to be somewhere for a week or two and I couldn’t use my Google Fi data (because I’d already been traveling for longer than 3 months) I would still consider an e-sim. You can find good deals at Airalo, Yesim, and Drimsim.

Local sims

For the overall best experience, I recommend getting a local SIM card. If you are using another service like Verizon and you only have one slot in your phone, this will be an annoying option.

But if you were a savvy traveler and you switched to Google Fi or T-Mobile already, they both use e-sims so you actually have your physical SIM slot free! This is a perfect opportunity to grab a local SIM card from either a phone shop, supermarket, or sometimes even a convenience store/7-Eleven. They are usually super cheap, packed with data, and usually come with a phone number! Win/win/win! (You can also find them at airports, but they’re typically a bit more expensive.)

Pro Tip: Sometimes the store clerks are super helpful and will open your phone up and pop it in, but it’s a good idea to pack a paper clip in one of your bags just in case.

Using 2 SIM cards

It’s not enough just to have 2 SIMs on your phone. You have to make sure they are set up correctly to avoid getting charged extra and make sure that your phone is working the way you want it to.

Personally, I have my US phone number tied to a Google Fi account. I pay for the cheapest option (~$26/mo) to keep the number I’ve had all my life (and for that all important multi-factor authentication) and only pay for roaming data as needed (usually never). Since I planned to be in New Zealand for a year, I bought a local SIM card when I arrived, and put that one directly in my phone (~$12/mo for 1.5g data).

Now, while I have a New Zealand phone number, most of the calls I make and receive are to folks back home, so I want my primary number to be my US-line, but I want my data consumption to pull from my New Zealand line. So I set my settings up to look something like this:

And voila! It sounds complicated, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll never fear a giant bill from using your phone abroad ever again.

For any long-term travelers out there– how are you using your phone abroad without paying an arm and a leg?