Recieving Google Voice Texts While Overseas
 

I have searched but been unable to find a clear answer.

I reside in the US and have a Google Voice #. If I travel overseas with an unlocked phone and use a local data Sim or WiFi, will I be able to send and receive texts on the Google Voice APP.

Making or receiving calls on Google Voice is not needed as I mainly use it for text notification of transcribed voice-mails.

Thanks

Yup, worked for me in Australia.

Yeah, just use the Google Voice app.

Works no problem, but remember you can't text numbers in the country you are traveling to. Still to/from US numbers.

Works just fine in London,Germany, Turkey, Poland, Dubai, Afghanistan.
Get a wifi or data connection, open Google chat and type away.
Another great tool is Viber, many people use it for free calls* to anyone anywhere that have viber installed and running.

* Free = still needs data but doesn't use 'air time minutes'

I've done the same. I use iOS and had no problem.

I recently wrote the Sean Kovacs (author of GVMobile) and suggested a potential revenue stream which I think he decided to ignore. Many VOIP companies and others sell foreign SMS messages very cheaply. For example Fishtext.com. You can send foreign texts and spoof your own mobile number. The problem on Apple (don't know about Android) is that you don't have threaded messages. You have to go to Fishtext's app to send and go over to Apple's to receive. I suggested create an optional feed to these services from his GVMobile app to send foreign texts. He could either resell the texts and turn a profit or let people buy the texts from Fishtext/Voip and create some sort of referral code system in his app to let Fishtext know he was the source and get a revenue stream from these referrals. I think one of these developers might be interested in such an idea.

Thanks for the replies!!

One less problem to worry about.

Don't mean to hijack this thread, but I'm planning on doing something similar during a trip to Italy this spring ('13).

I have a US Verizon iPhone 4S and will get an Italian TIM SIM card (+data) when I get to Italy. I want to be able to forward calls & texts FROM my cell number TO Google Voice, so I can retrieve them using Google Voice on the web or the Google Voice App on my iPhone. (I already have a Google Voice number.) Will this work? Any 'gotchas' I should be aware of?

I tried to use Google Call (Chat) during a trip to Greece a couple years ago, but it didn't work. I'll probably use Skype for calls back to the states (for work, if necessary), but I just want to verify that my plan to get voicemail & texts using Google Voice for the Italy trip will work.

It will work for texts and voicemails with no complications. For voice calls you can do that also via WiFi via an app. For Android I use GrooveIP. I'm sure there is an iPhone equivelant.

Think about just forwarding GV voice mails to an email account. You won't even have to retrieve them. Also, my experience with TIM & Vodafone, I would go with Vodafone Italia.

Ive used in many countries all over the world. Ive used talkatone w GV and done calls too. All over local data.

Thanks for the replies. I just discovered a couple of hitches.

First, Verizon doesn't forward text messages (so I can't get them to go to GV)

I get a lot of automated text messages from work which are sent to my cell phone's email address (they go to my cell phone via '[email protected]'). I was hoping I could send them instead to GV via '[email protected]', but GV doesn't have this capability, and I haven't found a workaround that is a viable option. This seems like a GIANT gap in the functionality of GV.

So much for my grand plan. ;(

Um... your GV isn't linked to an email? [email protected]?

Yes, I have an email address linked to my GV account. Why?

Why don't you just send the email notifications there. If you're on a smartphone that can receive texts, then you don't really need that old antique feature to receive emails via SMS.