Prepaid SIM - France
#211
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: SFO
Programs: UA Platinum, AF, Chase, Hyatt Explorist
Posts: 1,071
I think Orange is a great option for a prepaid travel SIM in France. I've used it several times, and it's great. They've also made it even more tourist-friendly over the years. They even have a site in English for it, where you can buy an eSIM:
https://boutique.orange.fr/vitrine/c...e-holiday-eng/
If you don't want to fumble with an eSIM, you can get a physical SIM card sent to you instead if you order on Amazon:
#212
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: North Dallas
Programs: AA Executive Platinum
Posts: 493
just got back from france and the orange sim listed above is great.. I bought it before I got there, and followed instructions had the whole thing setup as second sim before I landed. Worked really good. only thing is when i went to spain, needed to set it up to roam and then it turned off the day that I left, we were there for 15 days though so maybe that's why.
got 4g everywhere, was very happy with the service.
I'm sure i could probably save maybe 10 bucks by doing it once I landed but as I discovered, a lot of people in france don't speak english and having this already done was great.
my favorite app over the entire trip was google translate on my iphone, translated emails, directions and realtime picture translation was great because a lot of museums don't have the exhibit details in english.
got 4g everywhere, was very happy with the service.
I'm sure i could probably save maybe 10 bucks by doing it once I landed but as I discovered, a lot of people in france don't speak english and having this already done was great.
my favorite app over the entire trip was google translate on my iphone, translated emails, directions and realtime picture translation was great because a lot of museums don't have the exhibit details in english.
#215
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: North Dallas
Programs: AA Executive Platinum
Posts: 493
The point that I was making is that often times I would go into a store and no one would speak any English and I was using the Google translate app to try to figure it out and for someone who has never installed a esim before I think that the recommendation above of buying the orange Sim in the United States and then having everything already set up is worth the minimal amount of increased cost.
i’ve been traveling to Europe for gosh almost 30 years now and having that Google translate app has really made things a lot easier. We went to some of The museums in Avignon France and literally I would be looking at a statue that the description is only in French which is fine but there was no English guide they didn’t want you to take a picture of the actual item which then I could probably put it into Google lens and then figure out what I was looking at. But they didn’t seem to mind if I took a picture of the placard and use Google translate to translate it.
but yes I would not expect them to speak English. I think my last three or four vacations to Europe have been in the north of the continent and this time we were attempting to stay in really small cities. Shout out to Saint Remy it’s a beautiful little town.
#217
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 3,736
#218
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: YXY
Posts: 3,490
#219
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: RDU
Programs: Marriott Platinum. AA and UA as well, but I don't care about them anymore.
Posts: 303
I buy these for every trip to Europe (2-3 time per year for 2-3 weeks at a time) and they've worked great in every country I've been in.