Using Your Smartphone while Traveling in Europe
How many times a day do you grab your phone? Most of us do it far too often–but who can blame us? It’s how we chat, text, check our emails, and find a nearby restaurant. These days when you’re traveling, you’ll be tempted to do the same. If you’re not careful, these impulsive phone sessions could cost you dearly.
However, there is some good news. With a little pre-planning, it’s possible to use your phone while traveling abroad for a variety of purposes (calling, texting, emailing) without getting stuck with a huge bill when you return.
Read through this quick tutorial and, I promise, you’ll be well positioned to make the right decisions about your phone needs for your upcoming trip.
1. Don’t do nothing (if you’re going to use your phone).
“Just winging it” with your smartphone in Europe can be a very costly mistake.
A few words for travelers who feel like hiding their head in the sand and saying, “I don’t want to think about this. I’ll just try to limit my phone use in Europe and we’ll see what I get charged when I get home.” Don’t do this.
First of all, you might find that your phone doesn’t work at all. Some American carriers simply don’t work in Europe, and thus you won’t be able to make calls or text (although you would be able to use the Wi-Fi). Other carriers require the phone to be enabled for international calling, texting and data. While others are set up to allow international use by default.
Chances are, however, that you’ll be able to use your phone. But crucially, you need to know how much your usage is going to cost you.
2. Understand the international phone plans
Your phone carrier will most likely have an international plan to sell you that makes using your phone abroad more economical.
As you’ll see below, phone companies offer special international plans to cover just this situation. These are plans that you will “add on” to your existing plan, and which should cover the duration of your trip. In most cases, you can call your carrier to add the plan to your account, although most will let you add these online if you prefer.
In this tutorial, I’m focusing mostly on AT&T’s plan (as of February 2015), as it’s the most popular iPhone and Android carrier in the US. However, each carrier’s international plan is different, and you should obviously call or visit your carrier’s website for more information on the plans available to you.
Here are AT&T’s three plans for iPhone and Android phone use throughout Europe:
| No plan |
“Passport” plan |
“Passport Plus” plan |
“Passport Pro” plan |
|
| Price | – |
$30 / 30 days |
$60 / 30 days |
$120 / 30 days |
| Messages sent (Text, picture, video) |
$0.50/text message $1.30/picture & video message |
Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Talk | $1.50/min. |
$1.00/min. | $0.50/min. | $0.35/min. |
| Data | $0.0195/KB ($19.97/MB) |
120MB Overage: $0.25/MB |
300MB Overage: $0.20/MB |
800MB Overage: $0.15/MB |
| Wi-Fi | Free | Free | Free | Free |
As you can see, if you use your phone extensively without a special international plan, you will probably wind up paying dearly for it. On the other hand, if you have very limited phone needs (maybe you’ll make a couple calls, but you won’t send text messages or check your email), you might find out that none of the special international plans make sense for you.
The point is, it’s worth spending 15 minutes to asses your phone needs and understand what your charges will be before you hit the ground in another country. Let’s continue!
3. Assess your own phone needs
How do you want to use your phone during your trip? This will affect which kind of package you should get.
Now we need to figure out what you’ll be using your phone for while traveling. This will determine if you should get a special international plan from your carrier or just wing it without a plan.
How will you be using your phone? Here are some options:
• Making and receiving phone calls: If you plan to use your phone to place or receive calls, you should consider a phone plan. If your phone is enabled for international calling, you’d be able to make and receive calls without a plan, but those calls will be more expensive without a plan than with a plan.
For AT&T customers, for example, placing or receiving calls is $1.50 per minute without a plan, or $1 per minute with a $30 “Passport” plan. Seriously consider how many phone calls you’ll expect to make or receive during your trip. While that $.50 per minute savings isn’t huge, it can add up if you’re planning to make and receive several calls a day.
• Texting: Sending and receiving text messages comes in handy when traveling, and it’s far less expensive than placing phone calls. If your phone is activated for international use, the texts you send will be less expensive with a plan than if you “go commando” without a plan.
For AT&T, texting without a plan is $.50 per text sent ($1.30 if it’s a picture or video), while that same $30 package gives you unlimited texting. I send about 10 texts a day while on the road–so without a plan I’d already be spending $5 per day in texting charges alone.
• Email, Internet web browsing, and apps: Using your phone to send and receive emails, browse the web, and use apps while on the road is certainly convenient, but it also uses a lot of data. In the next point, I cover how to estimate data needs, but suffice it to say that this can get expensive quickly.
This is the biggie — AT&T’s $30 “Passport” plan comes with a 120 MB (megabytes) of data transfer, while using data without a plan will cost a $0.0195 per KB (which is 1/1,024 of a MB — do the math and you’ll see that they’re charging a whopping $19.97 per MB!).
4. Estimate your data needs
How much data will you use during your trip?
Now, if you’re like me, you’re left scratching your head. How much data is a KB? How much data will I need? (It’s almost enough to make you stick your head back in the sand and say, “Whatever — I’m just flying solo without a plan.” Please don’t! Stick with me here.)
Here’s a quick overview of estimated data usage, based on averages. These will vary depending on the email or webpage. (These estimates are from AT&T’s helpful data estimator. It’s definitely worth checking out to estimate your own needs.):
• Sending or receiving an email (without attachment): Approx. 20 KB per email
• Sending or receiving an email (with “standard” attachment): Approx. 300 KB per email
• Loading 1 webpage: 1 MB per page
Whoa — interesting, right? This means that AT&T’s $30 “Passport” package, with 120 MB of data, will allow you to send and receive more than 6,000 emails (without attachments), if you don’t use your data for anything else. Without AT&T’s Passport plan, each email (sent or received) will cost about $.39 each.
And we’re just talking about emails without attachments. Once you send that photo of you smooching at Notre Dame or download a photo of your cats back home that your neighbor just sent, your data use takes a big jump. And don’t get me started about checking a website — you can do it, but know that it blows through about 1 MB each time a page loads (and much more if that page contains a lot of photos).
A word of caution for those who want to use their phones for apps: Do it for free while connected to Wi-Fi (see below). Here are some typical usage stats for common app uses:
• Streaming music: 500 KB / minute (30 MB / hour)
• Posting 1 post on social media with photo: 350 KM
• Streaming video (standard quality): 2 MB / minute (120 MB / hour)
Get the picture? If you fire up your phone while traveling without a data plan and stream a standard video on YouTube, you’ll pay a budget-busting $39.94 per minute! That 10-minute video clip just cost you $400.
5. Remain calm and remember Wi-Fi
Free Wi-Fi networks let you use your phone for free.
And now, for some good news: You can use your phone abroad to make calls, surf the web, and even use your favorite apps for free. Just stick to free Wi-Fi networks and keep your cellular data switched “OFF”.
Free Wi-Fi is going to be your best friend when trying to stay connected abroad without using expensive data. It’s increasingly easy to find free Wi-Fi in most European hotels, restaurants (McDonald’s and Starbucks, along with many local establishments throughout Europe), train stations, libraries, stores… even parks!
Once you connect your phone to a Wi-Fi network, you can surf away on your browser and load up your apps. And we’re not just talking about Facebook, Twitter and Instagram–you can also fire up telephone apps, such as Skype, to place calls for free (if calling another Skype user) or pennies a minute (if calling a telephone number).
A word about texting and Wi-Fi: Yes, you can also send text messages on your smartphone through a Wi-Fi network. On the iPhone, for example, you can use iMessage. However, these messages can only be sent and received when you’re connected to a Wi-Fi network, and are thus a bit different from standard text messages (which zip through the air in real time via your phone carrier). My solution is to turn off my iMessage feature on my phone while traveling and only send regular text messages. I want to be able to send and receive these text messages in real time.
My plan
I know that there’s a lot of information here. You might be curious about how I handle my iPhone (with AT&T) while traveling. For years I told readers to simply put their phones in “Airplane Mode” for the entirety of their trip, use Wi-Fi networks, and get a texting plan. However, my carrier, AT&T recently changed the plans that they offer–they dropped their texting plan, and replaced it with the three “Passport” plans listed above.
So, I’ve been forced to evaluate my own phone needs, estimate my data use, and go with one of the new plans. (I’m not complaining, as the new plan includes unlimited texting and gives 120 MB of data, which allows me to check emails and Google Maps when I don’t have a connection.) This is what I do:
• I call AT&T the day before I leave and set up the 30-day Passport Plan.
• I make very few phone calls while traveling, no more than one or two a day, when really necessary, and I keep them very short.
• I text a lot, as the plan comes with unlimited texting. I text my travel companions to set up meetings and I text home to set up Skype chats with loved ones.
• I take full advantage of Wi-Fi, using the free internet connection to download emails, surf the Web, and use apps, especially Skype and Facebook.
• I’m careful to keep my cellular data switched off at all times, except in those brief moments when checking emails without Wi-Fi.
• I reset my cellular data usage counter to zero, in order to monitor my data usage. (On an iPhone, you can find this under “Settings > Cellular”.) I’m careful not to let the usage get too close to my 120 MB limit.
This last point is important. Monitor your cellular usage. This will give you a sense of control over this situation, and also help calm your nerves about using your phone in the first place.
Now, make a call.
The last section is just what I do. You might have more data needs, or realize that you don’t need a plan in the first place. The important thing is that you understand what your carrier will charge you for the service that you need.
Armed with this, make your own call. If you’re signing up for a plan, I’d recommend calling your carrier and signing up over the phone. It’s worth talking these points through with a sales agent, as plans change and they can help clear up any misunderstandings.
Next: Ways to save on euros, ATMs, and credit cards abroad
About the author
About the author: Tom Meyers created and launched EuroCheapo from his Berlin apartment in 2001. He returned to New York in 2002, set up office, and has led the EuroCheapo team from the Big Apple ever since. He travels to Europe several times a year to update EuroCheapo's hotel reviews. Tom is also a co-host of the New York City history podcast, The Bowery Boys. Email Tom. [Find Tom on Google Plus]
Great article. I want to say .. can I be hired by you to work for your Eurocheapo company? 😊
Anyhow! Wishing you all the best! And don’t stop in what your doing !
Monika 😊