Hey everyone! I’ve been doing some research on this and I have more questions than answers now, so hoping for some help!
My boyfriend and I currently live in the US (we have a T-Mobile Magenta Max plan) but we’re retiring next year and planning to spend the next 5-10 years traveling abroad (Europe, Asia, Africa, South America). I might be hunting for something that doesn’t exist, but I’m looking for a single phone plan that would work on all these continents without me having to arrange for a local eSIM in every country.
I don’t know how much regular access to WiFi we’ll have so something like Airalo might be an issue given the very limited data thresholds.
Curious to hear any suggestions you might have!
I am looking to do something similar.
I think I’m going to buy a SIM from either “PureTalk” or “Fonus” or “Red Pocket” (or similar).
This way I will have a USA-based phone number that I can link to Google Voice.
This will allow me (hopefully) to do 2-factor authentification, and receive texts to the Google Voice Number even if that “PureTalk” SIM has data turned off.
I already have a SIM from a European company, because I am live in Europe mostly.
I need a working USA number in Europe, in addition to my Europe number.
So I want the Google Voice number to be my official number for the USA, piggy-backing off the PureTalk number.
T-mobile will work but it will be slow
No kidding! I was in 3 countries the last couple weeks and by the time I got to my final destination of Paris T Mobile was completely choking my data. Couldn’t even load a map to find my location!
I wouldn’t plan for 5 years - the market is going to evolve as voice disappears and eSIMs become more widespread and competitive. Better to focus on something that works for you now.
The major us carriers have them.
But they are expensive (or throttled like t mobile is).
So it might be some “pick your poison”.
Maybe even just a cheap global like TMobile or even Google Fi (they will eventually shut off your international data but it will still do phone and text good for bank 2fa) as a consistent one and then get local stuff.
In a lot of the world mobile internet is very cheap, even with tourist sims.
Almost everywhere will be cheaper than the US.
Look into eSims like Airalo
AT&T has a plan that’ll do it for you. It will run you about $180 per month for a line. Basically, you buy a plan and then pay $10 per day for international days, but they cap that at ten days per month, and the rest of the month is free - https://www.att.com/international/day-pass/. You’ll get a little discount on a second line as part of a package.
yeah, that’s either going to be ridiculously expensive (global esim) or not possible. i’ve been on the road full time for 15 years. i’ve just accepted that i need to get a new sim every time i move. it’s not that big of a deal.
there are US plans that allow roaming but they’ll cut you off after a while.
Every airport and similar ports of entry will have a local sim shop usually. In my experience it would take something like 20 min per country to set up, and depending on your phone you could have the local and the US sim active at the same time (and choose what consumption goes to which sim).
imo not worth to overpay for a home contract, especially since it is very possible you get low priority in data roaming and your speeds might be low (eg. vodafone roaming sucks)
This is good to know! I didn’t know how difficult setup would be. The other issue I’ve run into is that I have the iPhone 14 which is eSIM only and that’s been a bit of a stress as well since there’s no port for a physical SIM
I think just getting eSIMs would be much cheaper tbh. I get that it can be annoying to have to shop around, but services like Airalo have tons different countries you can chose for https://www.airalo.com/ You just need to set up an account once and then get an eSIM for the country you need through their app.
Look at Manet.travel esims (that’s the URL of the website)
You can get esims that work in many countries at once. I know the European one is good, it even includes places like UK, Switzerland, Turkey, etc. And it’s pretty cheap! Usually the same price as any of the countries individually
Check out Airalo. Its an app that lets you download e-sims from pretty much any country. They also offer regional and global e sims. I’ve pretty much swapped to only using esims when i travel for the convenience factor but sometimes I buy a physical sim if its cheaper and I’m in a place for more than a couple weeks.
T-mobile Magenta Max with a lot of strategic data management. I will augment this with cheaper local sims when I will be in an area for a month or two.
I haven’t broken their data rule in a long time so I am not sure how T-mobile handles violators these days. In the last year I seem to stop back in the US just as T-mobile sends my first warning. I make sure to download tons of movies and music to my phone when I land to offset their 50% data rule for the next 3 months.
I am not exactly happy with this setup but haven’t found a good time to test an alternative.
Google Fi has been a life saver for me on this. I’ve used it in Portugal and Japan now, and within a minute of landing I’m connected to local towers with full service. The plan is like less than $80 a month, too