LtKernelPanic

My travels have thus far all been within the US but I'd never leave my iPhone at home when traveling domestically or internationally. As others have said it's much easier to get a cab, make a reservation, get directions or call for help in an emergency with one. Since I also have a grandfathered unlimited AT&T data plan I can use it for data and not have to pay the ridiculous hotel internet fees.

Remember cell phones all have one great feature for when you don't want to be bothered -- the power button.

wco81

Remember the days when you had to pay some extravagant fees to make calls from your hotel room?

Well the hotels will take your money if you want to use their phone system.

Same thing with Wifi. I went to a NYC hotel with free Wifi but the speed was about 200k. They would upsell you to "buisiness class Wifi" of 2 Mbps for about $10 a day. So I tethered to my iPhone 5, got several times that speed for no additional cost.


Or remember going to pay phones. Even if the receiver wasn't scummy with who knows what kind of germs, a lot of the phones were owned by third parties which would charge you double or more what other pay phones charged you.

Given how close to your mouth and ears these things get, it's unimaginable now to use phones which had been used by some strangers.

sparkchaser

Yesterday we were in Prague and on our way out of the city we made a "quick" side trip to Kutná Hora to see the Sedlec Ossuary. After the visiting the Ossuary, one of our visitors said "oh, there is a cathedral here I want to see" I asked her if she had an address. She said no but had the name of the cathedral. Thanks to my phone we were able to get an address and find the cathedral.

TheLinguist

Maps on the go. Google maps has public transit stops for most cities around the world. It can tell you where to find a bus stop, what number bus stops there and where it goes, when it will come etc. This is much easier when you can do it from the street.

Languages. I can get around in a lot of languages around the world, (Hence my moniker), but there are times you just forget how to say "bananas" in Hindi. Most outdoor markets and stalls don't have a wi-fi connection so having access to mobile data comes in handy here.

Sometimes you need to make a phone call. It may be to call a taxi, or your hotel, or somebody you met while hanging out at the cafe. It is good to have the ability to make and receive calls.

I am not tied to my cell phone in the US either, but something makes me pay for it every month. I would consider this, and consider the cost of a SIM in most countries is not that much when weighing the options.

Mul

For Bali or Indonesia, just buy a Telkom Simpati Prepaid Sim Card. At the airport, there are people usually selling it (either in Kiosks or someone offering to sell it directly) and already activated. I paid one for 60,000 Rupiah (about 6 USD), which is way too expensive but I need it at the moment. You'll also need to buy refill voucher since the sim card comes with tiny amount, I recommend to get 100,000 Rupiah voucher ( you buy 2x 50,000 ), there is instruction to refill in the voucher.

Once you got the sim card, buy their data package, for 60,000 Rupiah (about 6 USD), you get 3GB of data for 30 days. This website is in Indonesian http://www.telkomsel.com/popup/9345

It beats the roaming price you're quoted.

Why do I need to use local sim ? I'm not familiar with the places I went to, like Bali, so I use Foursquare to check out the recommendations from people on where to go for food.

wco81

Does Foursquare have recommendations for Bali?

How does it compare with Yelp and other restaurant apps. or sites?

With Google Maps, I think it shows the Zagat's rating, if it has one.

Mul

Foursquare is popular in Indonesia vs Yelp. Yelp has no coverage.

Ryan15037

Lots of Australians use 4Square in Bali so it should have some good info on there.

Has anyone heard of or used kolmee? It would apparently let me link my Australian phone number to an overseas mobile so people could just call it and pay local rates, then I just pay some rates on top. It doesn't really say much about what those rates would be without signing up though...

Fan2502

Can't you just activate call forwarding at your Australian number?

Fan2502

Seems the OP comes from the US. So it doesn't only need an unlooked GSM phone, but this must be a "Quadband" too. The "real" world (except Japan) GSM uses the 900/1800 MGh frequencies.

lwildernorva

The market in the US for used/refurbished units is pretty good. A Google search for "quadband GSM unlocked" pulls up lots of results, including one for a Samsung A817 at less than $60 with free shipping. I've bought even cheaper flip phones for around $20 off eBay, although admittedly those phones didn't have data or GPS.

gfunkdave

Virtually all phones sold in the US these days (except the ultra-cheapies) are quadband.

nkedel

Yeah, for basic voice service GSM band compatibility is basically a non-issue now. Pentaband world UMTS isn't hard to get, but not so universal, 4-out-of-5 UMTS is really common.

No world LTE phones yet, and probably a few years away.

pseudoswede

The only extended vacation Mrs. Swede and I (and kids) take is the four weeks we spend in Sweden visiting her family. This year, I paid $30 for each phone for a month of service: unlimited talk, unlimited text, and 2GB of data. When we're out and about, we can call/text family members (for example, asking MIL what we need to pick up at the grocery), Mrs. Swede used it to communicate with her friends, and posting pictures on the fly onto Facebook.

Having a cell phone with a data plan was useful when we took a 600-mile roadtrip. Google Maps was scarily accurate with their trip times. We realized we wouldn't make it to the hotel in time to check-in by 6pm, and we didn't reserve the room with a credit card. Mrs. Swede was able to google the hotel, call them, and make sure we guaranteed the reservation--all while driving.

It was also a working vacation for me, so being available to my co-workers back in the US was important. I utilized Google Voice and Talkatone to forward all calls from my US cell phone to my Swedish cell phone, and the only cost was the initial $30. I also utilized that setup to make the occasional phone call back to the US.

The one perk with using a T-Mobile-branded smartphone is that they also have built-in wifi calling. When Mrs. Swede has to work while overseas, she connects to a local wifi network with her US SIM card inserted, and all of her phone calls to/from the US are free. Call quality can be significantly better than using a third-party app like Talkatone.

danesville

How do you get data you can use with abandon? I get messages of overuse, one time a $660.00 fee. I know you can buy some data, but how do you get enough to use it as a GPS. Thanks