Originally Posted by
richarddd
What are people without US prepaid plans doing for voice calls and sending texts when outside the US? Whatsapp is popular but not universal. Google Voice won't send texts outside the US.
I... just use Google Voice. I've never needed to send an SMS to a non-US number while travelling. I can call anywhere I want (only U.S./Canada for free) and I can text American numbers from anywhere. You can usually receive texts from non-U.S. numbers but can't reply, e.g. a "your table is ready" or "your wifi access code is..." text.