<p>DD will be travelling in Spain and Poland this summer.
What is the best way to assure that she will be able to use a cell phone to communicate within those countries and be able to send me text messages?
If you have any experience, please share.
We have T-Mobile here in the US.
Someone told me to purchase a cheap “unlocked” cell here and buy a sim card in Europe???
Your expertise would be greatly appreciated :)</p>
<p>When my D did study abroad, she used an inexpensive European cell phone & bought a card there - that worked fine for communicating with her friends there. Our communication was through Skype and email, which worked out very well. She shut her own phone off when she flew out & turned it back on when she returned to the states.</p>
<p>Be sure tell her not to call YOUR cell here in the US. It costs a fortune (on most plans) to get calls from Europe. Skype, email and the occasional call to your land line should do it.</p>
<p>You can get pay as you go phones very cheaply in Europe. When I go home to England I have one that cost about 5 pounds. I just add money to the sim card (which you can do at many places such as newspaper shops). The card use actually gives 200 free international minutes for each 20 pound top up. </p>
<p>I usually spend about 20-40 pounds on top ups for a month long trip home. Compare that to my visit home a few year back (before I realized how cheap mobile phones were over there) when my Mum was in the hospital. I would be very upset when I left the hospital (Mum had cancer and the surgery and medication made her go a bit bonkers for a while) so would call my husband when I left the hospital. Our US cell phone bill was $1000 that month.</p>
<p>Also many (all?) European mobile phones do not charge for incoming minutes so you may be able to call her at a reasonable price if you set up an international thing on your home phone (we pay 5 or 6 cents a minute to call Europe).</p>
<p>Anyone knows how much might be a cheap phone in Madrid?</p>
<p>If you have an older phone sitting in a drawer somewhere that can be ‘unlocked’, i.e. not locked down to a particular carrier (sometimes the carrier will do this for you and other services advertise that the’ll do it but some look sketchy) then it might be able to be used in Europe if it’s a GSM phone (AT&T, T-Mobile - not Verizon or Sprint generally) then when you get to Europe you can just buy a SIM card pre-loaded with minutes.</p>
<p>I haven’t done the above but I’ve read of it.</p>
<p>For me, I simply just take my AT&T (in the past T-Mobile) phone along with me and don’t use it very much. It ends up not costing me much but I have it in the event of an emergency or if I really need it to call a hotel or something. The costs can be reduced somewhat by signing up for the company’s global plan that reduces the per minute fees for a particular monthly fee which can be canceled when one comes back home. One does need to be careful on the phone talking if choosing this option though.</p>
<p>Kelowa - trying posting your question on the Madrid forum on Trip Advisor.</p>
<p>Buy a cheap unlocked cellphone on ebay for $30. Buy preloaded sim cards in Europe. We have done this for France and Italy. We bought a prepaid sim online for a mission trip to Jamaica. We used Skype and Magicjack as much as possible (Ha, the Magicjack was GREAT to make calls to folks who do not skype.) The secret is having wireless access. And yes, many plans have free INCOMING calls so you can call her with inexpensive calling cards or temporarily get an international plan on your home phone.</p>
<p>When my son went overseas he bought a relatively inexpensive unlocked quad-band phone off ebay. We also bought a start-up European sim card (different countries have different brands) for his country over the internet. The reason is I did not want him to be without a communication method on the trip over there and until he could locate a phone. I’m sure we paid a little bit more because of this than if he waited to buy overseas, but I was ok with that for peace of mind.</p>
<p>I have used Picell Wireless. Both my daughter’s study abroad programs had arrangements with this company. The first time we rented the phone, the eecond time we bought and rented sim cards. The first daughter’s student housing also had land lines. I bought prepaid phone cards to call them from my office or home and we used Skype also. My last trip abroad involved several countries and with the rates now, I simply enabled my phone but told them not to call for casual conversation, just for emergency and important info. I checked my email in whatever hotels had business services-also you can go to internet cafe or even rent minutes in the public library if not traveling with your own laptop. They both had laptops of course and I always liked going to work and being able to g-chat during the day-depending on everyone’s schedule.</p>
<p>Thank you guys for all the suggestions.
I will be calling T-Mobile tomorrow asking about overseas options. We are very late (as usual) starting to think about all of this. She is leaving in less than a week. DD is only 14 (just graduating from 8th grade) and she will be in Europe with guardians who do have land lines, but I am so used to checking where she is and what she is doing, that I would love to have an option of texting her on a cell phone. We will be using skype and e-mail all the time, that is given, but I also would like her to have a cell for emergencies that I would not have to mortgage my house for ;)</p>
<p>SunnyFla and Skyhook, why can’t you just put the sim card in your current phone? Why the need to buy another cheap phone?</p>
<p>Most phones supplied by your provider are locked and will not work with any sim card other than the one from your phone company. If you can get the phone company to give you the unlock code then you can put another sim card in.</p>
<p>Thanks so much.</p>
<p>When you talk to T Mobile, make sure they enable the phone for international. Practice with your D how to call home from her cell. She might have to punch in +1 or 001 before the area code/number. Also ask about texting costs. Short texts might be a less expensive option to calling home. We have AT&T/iphone and each international text was 50 cents for a 160 character max versus 99 cents a minute for a phone call.</p>
<p>My son went to Europe when he was in 8th grade. I was a nervous wreck for 3 weeks and the only way I could track him was to login to his debit card account and see what he was up to. Good luck.</p>
<p>You need a cheap phone in case you loose it, it gets stolen etc. You need an unlocked quad phone that works on a variety of networks, not a locked phone that works on one. I have a quad unlocked phone that has worked in a variety of international destinations.</p>
<p>You are all so wonderful 
Yes, I am a nervous wrack sending my 14 year old for almost 2 and half months to Europe! She speaks both Spanish and Polish, so no problems communicating while there. She does have a phone awaiting her in Poland, we need something for a cheap, just in case communication between USA and Spain.
Is it better to buys a phone here, or just give her money to buy one there?</p>
<p>This is one thing that was drummed into me. You have to be very, very, very careful that whatever phone you have, it is not passively receiving data while you are there. If you have a smart phone, it is constantly receiving all kinds of stuff “through the air”, even when you are not using it. If your phone does this while you are in Europe you can run up astronomical bills and not even know it. You can take your iPhone, but leave it on airplane mode (don’t forget!) unless you are in a wi-fi place. Make your phone calls on your cheap phone with the European sim card.</p>
<p>I tried calling our AT&T company before my son’s trip to get detailed information and advice about going overseas and what would be the best thing for us to do. I was very disappointed with their lack of information, willingness to help me, and AT&T’s lack of affordable options. I had to dig it all out on my own.</p>
<p>Kelowna -
We just bought a cell phone for short term use while in Madrid for 19 euros at Corte Ingles! Everyone said this is the place to go - we had tried single-provider shops and questioned Madrid residents. However, when my son met his compatriots in his study-abroad program, he found they had all signed on to cell phone plan that allowed much more texting among the group, and he is thinking of switching. So, contact the study organizers before buying.</p>
<p>Never mind – just noticed that this thread is two years old!</p>