That electronic stuff
I'm old enough to remember the days when keeping in touch from vacation meant standing in line at for the chance to make a short and costly international call to tell the parents I was still alive. (Payphones were plentiful, but a long distance call required a ridiculous number of small denomination coins.)
Then came phone cards (one per country), and cellphones, although they involved prohibitive roaming charges if you used them out of country. It was usually cheaper to buy a local pay as you go phone, usually locked to a particular carrier.
The communication world changed with unlocked phones and worldwide SIM cards, which effectively turned you into a local, from a phone, text and internet point of view. I have an impressive collection of these, all now pretty pointless.
Now there's the eSIM, which does the same as a SIM, but electronically. I have optimistically downloaded one of the many options ahead of the trip, and hope for the best. It set me back US$11 for 5 gigs of data over 30 days, including a referral discount. That might be about what I spent to call England from Milan's main train station a million years ago and should last the trip.
A question for those who understand these things. Do I have to remove the existing Canadian SIM card, or will switching it off do enough to prevent those roaming fees?
Assuming the eSIM works, the phone and will be my only communication gizmo for the trip. And if it doesn't work? I spring for roaming on Day One and buy a SIM card when I get to Royan.
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Those old SIM cards won't do you any good. I was wondering the same thing last week, and discovered that my Spanish SIM card from last year expired after 6 months of no use. After that point, they can re-assign the phone number. I think I'll use an e-sim on my travels this year for the first time. It'll be convenient, if not terribly cheap.
8 months ago
7 months ago