<p>My D will be in Europe this summer. I want her to take a cell phone. We are with Verizon so her US phone will not work in the countries she is visiting. Would we be better off renting a global phone from Verizon or purchasing a phone from companies like STA travel? Any advice?
Thanks.</p>
<p>The global phone via Verizon is an option we’ve done for shorter trips (2 weeks and under), but it gets really expensive. Do you have a new-every-two deal w Verizon, and if so, are you close enough to get her a new one that can be configured to work in Europe?</p>
<p>If not, it sounds like sit-down-with-a-cost-comparison time. </p>
<p>Or, if you or your H has a phone that does (or can) work in Europe, you could try swapping with D for the summer. We did that once, though it was just for a three-week trip. (And whoever keeps her phone will get some very entertaining texts until her friends figure it out! :D)</p>
<p>I’m speaking from experience in the UK although I think most other European countries are similar. The cheapest and easiest route is probably to buy a cheap pre-paid phone in Europe. That will be by far the cheapest method for making local on the go calls in Europe and occasionally calls to the US. If she wants to make longer phone calls to the US then a pre-paid calling card for use on a landline or payphone (available in just about any small shop) is going to the the cheapest way. </p>
<p>The best route of course would be to make calls over the internet, although that may or may not be an option for you.</p>
<p>She can buy a cheap unlocked phone on Ebay and then a local sim card when she gets there or research global sim cards if she will be visiting several countries. We have unlocked phones and have used local prepaid sim cards in both the UK and Italy with no problems. You can even buy the sim cards on Ebay before leaving if you want to go with a phone number.</p>
<p>Check out[Slow Travel: Cell Phones in Europe](<a href=“http://www.slowtrav.com/europe/cell_phones.htm#choose”>http://www.slowtrav.com/europe/cell_phones.htm#choose</a>) for a good primer on cell phone options for Europe. When we travel, we use a dual band phone purchased on ebay and a SIM card purchased in Italy. It is fairly simple to purchase and set-up cell phones once in Europe as stated above. And you can always set-up an account and have a phone delivered to you in the US before your trip. Try [url=<a href=“http://www.telestial.com/]Telestial[/url”>http://www.telestial.com/]Telestial[/url</a>].</p>
<p>Rocketman08 is correct—the best and cheapest route is to buy a prepaid
phone when you arrive. We tried the ebay way and the prepaid way.
Go prepaid and buy in Europe.</p>
<p>Another local option is [Low-cost</a> Europe cell phones and European SIM cards](<a href=“Callineurope.com”>http://www.callineurope.com/) </p>
<p>You can either purchase an unlocked phone [if yours is not EU compatible and unlocked], or a SIM card with better rates than most US carriers.</p>
<p>For D’s trip to Europe we purchased a phone from Cellular Abroad
[Cellular</a> Abroad - International Cell Phone Rentals and SIM Cards](<a href=“http://www.cellularabroad.com%5DCellular”>http://www.cellularabroad.com)
It was $150, and it came with a multi-country SIM card and $30 of airtime. You can buy more minutes over the internet.
There is no charge for received calls (so we could call her many times) and there is charge of 0.90 cents per minute for her to call us.
The reception is great and it does work throughout Europe.
Messages are supposed to be cheaper, but we found out that we could not Text-message her using our Verizon phones 
You can also rent a phone from this company, but we figured that we would keep the phone and use it for other trips</p>
<p>Ditto to what Tuitionsaver said. We bought a Cellular Abroad package with a Siemens phone and Talk Abroad (multi-country) SIM card. My S has been in Uzbekistan for 3 weeks now and when he calls it sounds like he’s next door. He will be traveling throughout Europe for an additional 5 weeks when he leaves Uzbekistan, so we wanted something flexible where he wouldn’t have to swap out SIM cards in every country. We priced out the rent vs. buy options and for a trip longer than 2 weeks it made more sense to buy the phone and SIM card. It can be replenished on-line, or from the phone itself. However, if you replenish on-line make sure to see if the additional time is applied…we had a bit of a problem with that this week, but a quick call to customer service fixed everything. If you replenish via the phone the time is added immediately. We too have had the messaging issue. My S said its because Verizon uses a different text messaging system than the European/Central Asian networks.</p>
<p>We bought a quad band and call package (Sim card- good for all Europe) relatively cheaply on Statravel.com (student travel site). They have a very cheap dual band on that site too. Trying to limit the calls, tho, and Skype. Unfortunately, my wonderful hospital won’t let me into Skype, and the time difference will limit options.</p>
<p>Try getting a T-Mobile blackberry. Mine works in EU, US, and most of Asia. Amongst Asian countries, it works in all countries except Japan…not sure why not Japan. When I go to Japan, I have to rent a cellphone. Have used it in France, Switzerland, UK, India, all of US. Everywhere except Japan!</p>
<p>The best part is that you can access your email on the same phone too.</p>
<p>Buy the pre-paid (pay as you go) phone in Europe. It’s probably the cheapest option. Before my US cell phone would work in Europe, I bought a prepaid phone in France for about 70 euros (it was a top of the line model). Recharges can be purchased for 25 - 50 euro denominations as needed. There is no charge for incoming calls as there is in the US. Obviously, calls outside the country will use up the credits pretty quickly</p>
<p>However, don’t count on using the phone on a future trip. The ones I’ve seen have to be recharged at least every 8-9 months. If you let the phone go longer that that, you lose the chip. However, if it’s only for a short summer trip, you might then look for a nearby college student who will be spending the year abroad to give/sell it to.</p>
<p>Runnersmom:Have you figured out a way to send text messages to your S cellularabroad phone?</p>
<p>bump - so much info</p>
<p>I agree that buying a prepaid phone abroad is the easiest and cheapest way to go.</p>
<p>My D is in Italy this summer and we actually bought a phone and Italian Sim card thru Telestial before she left. I knew we were paying more than we would if she waited till she got to Italy to buy the phone but we wanted her to have a working phone as soon as she landed.
Unfortunately, the phone didn’t work when she landed and she had to go to a Tim store anyway. </p>
<p>Most of her friends just waited till they got to Italy to buy their phones and they spent MUCH less money.</p>
<p>I would also suggest buying an International Calling Card as a backup. We bought one at Costco and that was what D used until she got her phone working.</p>
<p>Tuitionaver, we have Verizon too and it seems that there are only certain phone services in Italy that Verizon phones can text message with, I think Voldaphone was one.</p>
<p>A hybrid solution for some - </p>
<p>If the traveler already has a GSM phone (AT&T or T-Mobile - not Verizon or Sprint) they can just take that with them and use it for emergency use on the way until they buy a cheaper to use phone once they get there. If their phone is unlocked, they can just buy a SIM card there. </p>
<p>Alternatively, they could just use the GSM phone from here (assuming they have one) and not talk a lot. This actually isn’t that difficult depending on the circumstances if they’re involved a lot in what they’re doing over there. Quick messages (“I’m here”, “I’m fine”, “We went to … today”) can go via text message which is a lot cheaper than voice calls. My D just used her AT&T phone when she went to Europe as did I when I went another time. It really wasn’t that expensive or problematic since we were midful of the cost - kind of like talking ‘long distance’ years ago.</p>
<p>We purposely chose T-Mobile/AT&T due to them being GSM and avoided the others due to the convenience of having them work in Europe.</p>
<p>We have Sprint cell phones which lack the ability to be unlocked and don’t have quad bands. When D went to France on a school trip we purchased a cheap quad band, unlocked phone which has a removable Sim card. In the Paris airport she purchased a new Sim card for use in France. She was able to call the US easily and cheaply. Once back in the US she switched back to the original Sim card.</p>
<p>I got a sim card from [Cello</a> Mobile](<a href=“http://cellomobile.com%5DCello”>http://cellomobile.com) they offered me .69¢ a minute for outgoing and incoming calls from most EU countries and the number was a US number which was perfect for my family in the us since for them it was a local call and the service was excellent!!</p>
<p>Be careful - it’s not all about the minutes. My kids don’t talk on their phones - they text. And the text messages were .50 outgoing; .05 incoming. For my kids that could be $ 5 - $ 10 per day !!!</p>
<p>Cell phones are great; but to phone home use Skype.</p>
<p>how did i manage to study abroad for a year and only call home twice?? Obviously it was back in the dino. age! Last year used a regular AT+T long distance card, it worked great from French pay phones. I know, this doesn’t really help answer the question. Kids (and us parents) are used to having so much more than we did at their age! I have wondered if I would be able to use my new iPhone?</p>