Stay Connected When Traveling Abroad

International travel is great, but it can be a minor headache to figure out how to stay connected to the internet while you’re abroad. Here are our favorite options, loosely ranked. The best option for you will depend on a variety of factors such as trip length, country or countries visited, and number of travelers.

1) T-Mobile

Most T-Mobile users enjoy data access in hundreds of countries, and high speed data in many, depending on the exact plan. Calls cost .25¢ per minute, so if you only need to occasionally use the phone to, say, make restaurant reservations, these plans are clear winners. We have never needed to use the phone for more than 5 minutes per trip abroad, so a T-mobile plan would allow us to stay connected for just a few dollars per trip. 

Actually, in Italy our rental car broke down and we spent about an hour stuck outside a local police station, on the phone with Avis trying to get rescued. All that phone time would have run us $15 or so, still much less than we spent for phone service on that trip.

Bonus: for a few more days, you can earn 10k Delta Miles for switching to a qualifying plan. 

Double bonus: T-Mobile customers also get free in-flight wifi on Alaska, American, United, and those (increasingly rare) Delta flights that don’t have free wifi for all Skymiles members. 

2) E-SIMS

E-SIMS allow you to add an electronic (rather than physical) second SIM card to your phone for use on foreign networks. These generally require that your phone be unlocked, which will depend on your domestic carrier’s rules. 

If you are able to use an E-SIM, however, it tends to be very convenient and very affordable. You can buy the card in advance, download the installation code and guide, activate the card using the wifi at your arrival airport, and you’ll be good to go. This generally takes 5-10 minutes, a bit more if it’s your first time, and can be accomplished while you’re waiting for your luggage at the baggage claim.

I generally use Airalo for its cheap rates and “Airmoney” rewards of 5% or more back in store credit for each purchase. (Sign up using my referral code MICHAE1215 to get $3 off your first purchase.) Airalo SIMs tend to be data-only, though, so if you want phone service you’ll have to ensure that it is available on the SIM you choose. In Europe, I generally use Orange, which has plans including dating, text, and calls within Europe (you’ll get a French phone number that works throughout Europe). 

If you are traveling with a companion (or companions), you may be able to choose an E-SIM that allows tethering (like Airalo), enabling you to economize by purchasing only a single card rather than one for each user. That said, in our experience this connection breaks easily with iPhones, and it may be more convenient for everyone to have their own card. In our case, Shawn would constantly have me set my phone’s navigation to a random place to keep my phone awake, as she would lose her connection to my wifi every time the phone went to sleep. As a money saving strategy it is great, but if you want a simpler experience, you might be better off getting everyone their own card.

Depending on the country you travel in and how much data you want to purchase (you can always top off if you need more), these cost about $20-30 for up to 14 days worth of travel. For reference, in our last two trips to Europe, I used less than 5 GB of data. An Airalo plan with 10GB of data and 30 days of Validity costs $24 (but is currently on sale for $12). The Orange plan I bought cost 20€. 

3) Portable Hotspot Rentals

A NinjaWifi portable hotspot.

Portable hotspots allow you (or your whole party) to connect to a single mobile data source. It’s a great way to economize if you have multiple phones to connect, and it saves you the trouble of installing SIMs or E-SIMS–and allows you to access the internet if your phone, say, doesn’t have a physical SIM slot and hasn’t been unlocked to permit an E-SIM installation. 

The main downside of these are that you will generally have to research them for each destination, read reviews for reliability, and physically pick up and return the hotspot. You will also have to carry it with you anywhere you want to have internet access. And, depending on the hotspot, you might have to dedicate some of your portable charging capacity to keeping the hotspot alive, in addition to your phones. For these reasons I am not a big hotspot fan. 

That said, we used NinjaWifi in Japan and it was quite reliable with very good speeds. The battery life was decent and the slim device didn’t take up too much space or add too much weight to a backpack. At roughly $100 US for 10GB of data over 7 days, it’s not exactly cheap, though. Similar services in Mexico and Italy, for example, have similar prices (we have not tried these and can’t speak to their quality). 

4) Hotspot Hopping

If you can bring yourself to disconnect and live the old-fashioned(ish) way, you can simply limit your data use to whenever you have access to wifi, such as in the hotel, airport, or other public places. This has the benefit of being completely free, although you’ll want to have an option to activate some sort of global roaming should an emergency arise. 

This works best if you are willing to wander and rely on your feet and public transportation. If you need to navigate your way around using data-based navigation apps (e.g. in a rental car), this might not work for you. Of course, you can always mix and match, using a single day of roaming or E-SIM service to get around when necessary and disconnecting and hotspot hopping to save money when you can. If you have multiple travelers, you can have a single person connected and tethering traveling companions, with the rest relying on public wifi. 

5) Physical SIMs

Although newer iPhones don’t have physical SIM slots anymore, most phones still do. If yours does, you can purchase a temporary local SIM card at your destination. As with the portable hotspots, this will probably require you to find a vendor at the airport (if you’re lucky), and hopefully they’ll be able to install it for you. I had a bad experience hopping around Vodafone shops across Italy trying to first obtain an SIM and then get it to work, so I am not a big fan of this method. And, like the E-SIM, you’ll still need to ensure that your phone is unlocked.

But if you’re a technophobe, this might be more appealing than E-SIM installation (although that really is quite easy once you get the hang of it), and according to Rick Steves, who has more experience with physical SIMs than I do, a SIM with a month of data is likely to run you only $15-30, roughly in line with E-SIM costs.

6) Verizon, Xfinity, or AT&T Phone Plans

These carriers offer international roaming for $10/day, a very pricey option. However, Verizon and Xfinity offer roaming in Mexico and Canada for $5/day, and some unlimited plans include roaming in those countries. AT&T unlimited plans include data, text, and calls in Mexico and Canada, and Unlimited Premium plans include text, calls, and data in 20 Latin American countries. 

7) Purchasing an unlocked phone for foreign SIMs

If your phone hasn’t been unlocked, you can always use an older unlocked phone you have lying around, or purchase one. Some cheap unlocked smartphones can be had for under $150 on Amazon. 

This might make sense if you’re planning a longer trip or multiple overseas excursions. For example, a $130 unlocked phone and two $20 foreign SIMs would be cheaper than paying for international roaming with Verizon or AT&T starting on the 18th day of travel. If you can resell the phone, the breakeven point could be even earlier. 

8) Portable Hotspot Purchase 

If you’re traveling a lot, you might want to invest in a portable hotspot that you can reuse. You will have to pay a hefty upfront cost for the device, plus pay for service when you need it, but at least you won’t need to take time out of your trip to pick up and return a rented hotspot. 

The SIMO Lite 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot, for example, costs $159, but includes 1GB of data for free each month in over 135 countries, and you can purchase additional data for $9 per GB or $9 for one day of unlimited data. You’ll notice that the daily data rate is only barely better than Verizon, AT&T, and Xfinity’s global pass rate, and those carriers don’t require such a significant upfront investment. You can also add your own SIM or E-SIM to most portable hotspots, but you could also do that with a phone. Perhaps other portable hotspots offer better deals on data, but I have had trouble finding an example of one.  

While I struggle to see how a single person or even a couple could ever come close to breaking even on one of these things, a larger family looking to connect 8-10 devices could find the convenience of a single hotspot (compared to tethering between individual phone lines) worth investing in, and it might even prove economical at that scale. 

Bonus: Concierges!

Finally, I wanted to briefly mention the usefulness of concierge service in deciding what you need from your phone while abroad. For the most part, we have only really needed our phones to make restaurant reservations. But if you have concierge service at your hotel or from a credit card like the Capital One Venture X or no-fee Bilt Mastercard, you can submit a reservation request via their online forms and they will call the restaurant for you, no phone needed on your part. (Note that your first contact with the concierge will have to be by phone, so be sure to get set up before you depart. Note also that the turnaround time can take a day, so this is better for reservations planned slightly ahead of time.) 

Conclusion

T-Mobile’s international offerings are great, and could save you $10-30 per trip compared to buying a virtual or physical SIM, in addition to the convenience benefits. If you don’t have T-Mobile though, those SIMs tend to be much cheaper than enabling most carriers’ international roaming, especially over longer trips. If you’re traveling in a group or your phone hasn’t been carrier-unlocked, portable hotspots might be beneficial, although they tend to be more expensive and you’ll have more logistics to deal with. 

Personally, we’re switching to T-Mobile (not for this reason, but it’s a plus!), and look forward to reporting back on the international travel experience as soon as we can.