How to Use a Cell Phone Abroad (Part 1 - Our Choices)

After years of watching YouTube influencers and reading about life abroad, the biggest question we had continuously was “How will we use our cell phone?” While several people touched on this issue and others tried to talk deeper about the subject, none seemed reassuring to us. We each had been customers of Verizon with the same phone numbers for over 22 years and feared the change. We HAD to keep our old phone numbers as our entire lives were attached to that number (medical, dental, friends, subscriptions, business relations, family, everything). One of the sales reps even told us “…you’ve been a customer longer than I’ve been alive” (insert groan). So, what were we supposed to do about our phones and still keep our phone numbers while traveling abroad? What were our choices for 2025?

Choice 1: Keep Verizon

Verizon has indeed options for travel abroad. We used it in Ireland during our two weeks (2022). It cost an extra $100 for the month and was easy-squeezy! Recently, they have added more options. But, at the time we needed to decide, our option would have cost us about $2,700/ year for a standard US service plans PLUS $2,400/year for international travel. = $5,100/year

Choice 2: Eliminate all cellular service and ditch the phones forever. 🤣 like that will ever happen.

Choice 3: Switch to T-Mobile. They had a 55+ plan and an international plan. The service plan would be a minimum of $110/mo. plus a low calling rate of $0.25 per minute. With a per minute charge, this was an unknown expense for us since we imagined lengthy calls home to our children.

Choice 4: Several influencers used Google Fi successfully. They are travelers who move in and out of the United States on a regular basis. The way we understood it, though, after 6 months outside of the United States, Google Fi stops your service until you return to the USA. For us, we were planning to be gone one solid year and did not want Google Fi to shut off service part way through our trip.

Choice 5: Two of our top influencers recommended Google Voice. This is different than Google Fi. Google Voice is a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone service that was founded in 2009 and it’s only available to US citizens. It only works if you are connected to an internet service (like WiFi or a data plan). Google Voice will give you a telephone number for calls and texts or you can use your own phone number. The best part was that Google Voice cost was only $20 for the initial set up, then it had free unlimited phone calls and unlimited texting. The uncomfortable part was that Google Voice did not have a data plan which is what allows the phone to be used for internet or while getting lost in cities. So, we also needed a Sim card for our phones.

Putting this in simple language, every phone comes with a SIM card. When you buy a service plan from Verizon, T-Mobile, ATT, etc. they activate your SIM card for their services. These companies bundle the call/texts/data into a package. When traveling abroad, you can buy a new SIM card or Electronic e-SIM card. Older phones needed a physical card inserted into the phone and most phones had 2 slots for these cards. Newer phones have an electronic component which allows the phone to have multiple e-SIM cards (only one can be activated at a time).

Travelers vary in preference of when and how to buy their SIM/e-SIM card. Some make the purchase when they land in their new county, others buy in advance and activate when they arrive. Some traveling couples we follow even choose two different methods.

There are hundreds of companies that provide SIM and e-SIM cards all over the world. You have likely heard of these (Orange, Holafly, Airalo, Nomad, Vodafone). We could have purchased one card for each of the countries to which we traveled, one card per region (Europe/Asia/USA/etc.) or one card for the entire globe. The larger the coverage area, the more it will cost you, of course.

Armed with the knowledge that other travelers were successfully using Google Voice (free per month) and an e-SIM (approximately $20 per month), we decided to use this option. The choice was the easy part, really. Making the shift was scary as hell for us.

**Watch for Part 2 where we discuss Google Voice and Airalo in greater detail.