Travelling to Europe? This is My Favourite Travel SIM Card.
If you’re like me and don’t want to pay hundreds of dollars in international roaming charges, then I suggest looking into getting a travel SIM or eSIM for your next holiday. But before you do, you’ll want to make sure you have an unlocked phone and a compatible device.
What is international roaming?
International roaming refers to a mobile phone being used outside the range of its native network. E.g. when you go to any country outside of your home country, your phone will connect to an available network there (unless you turn this off in your phone settings beforehand). For example, in Australia my phone is signed up to a Telstra pre-paid plan, which means when I leave Australia and travel to Europe, my Telstra plan will begin charging me fees for using the internet, making calls and sending text messages. This is fine if I want to pay $10 per day for just 1GB of data (see Telstra’s roaming plans here), but if I’m on holiday for 2 weeks, this will cost me over $140! This is where having an international SIM or eSIM card will come in handy.
Why you’ll want a travel SIM card:
Save money on international roaming charges.
Have an active phone number to put down for reservations and bookings.
Be able to use data on the go and get real-time info from Google Maps or other navigation apps.
Easily message and contact your travel companions without needing to use the free wifi in Starbucks or McDonalds.
In the case of an emergency you’ll be able to call your family/friends, the local authorities, your bank or credit card provider (in the case of fraud or card locking), or anyone else important.
Step 1: Is my phone unlocked? And how do I check if it is?
But first, if you want to use any other sim card in your phone, you must make sure your phone is ‘unlocked’, and no, this doesn’t mean putting in your passcode to use the phone. An unlocked phone is exactly that; a device that has no ties to its network carriers (e.g. in Australia this could be Vodafone, Telstra or Optus). Typically, when your phone is locked to a contract, or you’re still paying the phone off from when you bought it, the phone will remain locked to that network. These phone companies will generally put a ‘lock’ on your SIM card, meaning you won’t be able to buy a phone from Telstra, then use an international SIM card from another provider, or any other carrier for that matter.
So the process of ‘unlocking’ your phone is actually ensuring you can use any SIM card with your phone. The easiest way to ensure your phone is unlocked, is by buying your phone outright (not on phone + plan payment terms). I’ve left some instructions below on how to check if your phone SIM is locked, but if you’re still unsure, I suggest contacting your original phone provider.
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To check if your phone is locked to a network or not the easiest way is to:
Insert another SIM card into your phone from a different provider
Allow a few minutes, then turn your phone off and back on.
If the different provider name appears in the status bar, your phone is unlocked.
If your phone is locked, you’ll get an error message saying you need to insert a valid SIM and you won’t be able to make calls, send texts or browse the Internet.
Step 2: how to set up your travel SIM?
Now you know your phone is unlocked, you’re ready to get a travel SIM card for your holiday. First, you’ll want to know which countries you’ll be visiting on your holiday - including transit or stop-over countries like Singapore or Dubai. When choosing my travel SIM card options, I looked at pre-paid plans which I could use across multiple European cities, which would save me the headache of having to change SIM cards multiple times during my trip.
You’ll also want to check what size SIM card your phone has, so when you go to purchase one, you’ll be able to check if it’s a Standard SIM, Micro SIM or Nano SIM.
When I first visited Europe, I used a travel SIM card from Three UK, which included 10GB of data for 30 days. However, you need a UK address in order to use this SIM beyond 30 days, which I found very annoying, and the interface to recharge or check your balance was very clunky.
But recently, I discovered eSIMs and these have totally streamlined this process for me. I no longer needed to pre-order my physical SIM card and hope it arrives at my address before I leave for my holiday. Or visit a small tobacco store in a country where I don’t speak the language and buy a SIM card I’m not sure has exactly what I need. Instead, I can do everything online with an eSIM, including recharging it when it expires.
Does my phone support an eSIM?
Now hold your horses partner! I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is, eSIMs are awesome. The bad news is, your phone might not be compatible. So before we get caught up on the intricacies of what an eSIM is, you’ll want to check if your phone is compatible with an eSIM here.
Now you’ve done that, you might want to know a little more about what an eSIM is. So here it is:
“An eSIM is a form of programmable SIM card that is embedded directly into a device.”
Basically, it’s like buying a phone plan online, but without the physical SIM card. You download the eSIM like you would an app, and this software goes onto your phone and will allow you to connect to the new phone network while you travel. It doesn’t replace or ruin your physical SIM card, so there’s no need to worry. Many modern smart phone’s can take more than one SIM card… Mind blowing, I know. 🤯
My favourite travel SIM / eSIM for Europe:
If you’ve gotten this far, congratulations! Now you’re ready to get a travel SIM card for Europe. This year (2022) I travelled to more than 10 countries in Europe and due to the nature of my job (I work as a marketing freelancer), it was essential I have some sort of wifi/mobile data at most times. So having an international data plan was important to me (plus, I’ll admit I’m not great at navigation, so I heavily relied on Google Maps and being able to check this on the fly). For this reason, I would often work from my laptop on trains, check emails on my phone as I hiked across France, and Facetimed friends and family back home.
After all of my research, and some trial and error, I finally came across this website:
They offer both a physical SIM or eSIM plan and cover a huge range in Europe. Plus you can use the data to hotspot to other devices (something you’ll want to check before buying a travel SIM, as sometimes they don’t allow this).
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From their website:
The Orange holiday offer works in the following countries:
Andorra, Azores, Aland islands, Germany, Austria, Balearic islands, Belgium, Canary islands, Cyprus, Corfu, Crete, the Cyclades, Croatia, Denmark, Spain, Estonia, Faeroe islands, Finland, France (mainland), Gibraltar, Greece, Guernsey, Hungary, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Jersey, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madeira, Malta, Isle of Man, Norway, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Czech Republic, Rhodes, Romania, United Kingdom, San Marino, Sardinia, Sicily, Slovakia, Switzerland, Sweden, Vatican
Are there other SIM options for world travel?
So the SIM card provider I recommended above is a great option if you’re travelling to Europe, but what if you’re heading to other parts of the world? Or combining your Europe trip with non-European countries? Well, I haven’t personally used this provider, but I came across the website below while reading a forum on exactly this topic. They seem to have a range of multi-country plans at relatively affordable prices. If you do give it a go, please let me know what you think!
