Mobile phone in Europe for an American

November 23, 2024 6:57 PM

Looking for advice on how to mobile phone in Europe. Difficulty level: Ten days; far Northern Finland; staying reachable by family at home.

I'll be taking my first trip outside the US in a long while, and need to plan for mobile phone access. We are going on a northern lights tour near Karigasniemi, Finland. I have looked at coverage maps for the three major Finnish phone providers, and it looks like the service up there is patchy, but available near the towns, at least for the Telia network (I'm less sure about Elisa or DNA). I'm trying to understand my options.

On past international trips, I have purchased a local SIM card for my phone and swapped it out without too much thought, because I mostly anticipated calling local people. This time, though, I'd mainly like to be reachable from family at home if something bad happens to my mother, ideally at my same phone number. I'm OK paying a little bit extra for the peace of mind that would provide, but I'd like to know whether it's realistic to think that international roaming from a US provider would be available in the far north of Finland, and/or what network constraints I might be under.

Right now I would say I am US provider agnostic, in that we have been unhappy with our current service (CREDO) and looking to switch anyhow, so moving to one that's good for international travel is very much on the table. I have an iPhone SE and it's new enough that I'd rather not replace the phone itself, if I can avoid it.

If the only sensible plan for decent coverage is the local SIM -- that's good information too. In that case I'd like to hear how other travelers with caregiver responsibilities have handled the logistics for being reachable in a crisis. My mother is in assisted living, so it will not be a "get there immediately" emergency, but a "head home early" emergency and a "make HCPoA-type decisions over the phone" emergency are both conceivable -- she's 75 and has had a rough year, and one never knows.

posted by eirias to Travel & Transportation around Utsjoki, Finland (18 answers total)

I asked a similar question earlier this year and the consensus was to download the Airalo app and buy a local eSIM. Worked great and you can leave your current SIM (physical or e) active so you can still be reached at your American number. In fact, I bought just a data eSIM for my trip since there was no need to have a local phone number.

I was skeptical of eSIM but it’s really awesome to be able to have both active at the same time. Just to be sure to turn off data roaming on your American SIM so you’re using the Finnish one for data.
posted by rhymedirective at 7:05 PM on November 23, 2024 [2 favorites]

I was one of the folks who spoke in favour of Airalo on previous threads. It was surprisingly easy to use and if you’d like a referral code please MeMail me. A colleague used it in Norway last month and said it worked like a charm.
posted by Juniper Toast at 7:52 PM on November 23, 2024

I would switch to T-Mobile. You don't have to worry about any SIM/eSIM switching. You get free international data and messaging all over Europe, calls are USD $0.25/min but you can buy a monthly calling package for a fixed fee. Or use WhatsApp to talk over data for free. Your US-based phone number works the moment you land.

TMO has a page to assist with international roaming.
posted by JoeZydeco at 8:08 PM on November 23, 2024 [3 favorites]

In my experience having a local-to-where-you-are phone plan works better than using roaming, especially if you are in remote areas. I was on a trip with friends last year during which I had a local SIM and they used roaming. In rural areas, my coverage was much better.
posted by donpardo at 8:36 PM on November 23, 2024 [2 favorites]

Any ideas from other posters on whether call forwarding from US to new FI number would be a workable emergency-contact option?
posted by lokta at 9:42 PM on November 23, 2024

We’ve always bought a local SIM card.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 9:59 PM on November 23, 2024

Another voice for Airalo. So much easier than buying physical sims.
posted by frumiousb at 2:59 AM on November 24, 2024

Just one note for traditional cell companies. Verizon is absolutely giving plans away right now (last night they offered me $1k in cash or a 75" TV plus a new iPhone and heavily discounted rates like 50% off).

They have had excellent coverage for me in Europe during my extensive travels the last 2 years. It's $10 a day or a flat $100 for the month to get unlimited calling texring and multiple GB per day of data. I'm a heavy user including tethering and never hit a cap.

I also traveled extensively with tmobile and found it to be very bad. The promise of tmobile everywhere never happened and the data was slow to unusable. Ymmv of course but it was part of why I left.i got tired of standing next to verizon users where they were like streaming video and I couldn't get a text to through and then it was garbage internationally.
posted by chasles at 4:43 AM on November 24, 2024

Just to summarize / organize a bit what others have said.
Physical Sim - fine. If it has data, your family can use whatsapp, skype, etc. to reach you or, if it has voice minutes, they can call your new finnish number.
E-sim - same as above, but make sure your phone is e-sim compatible.
The easiest is to talk to your company to get a Europe package.
Finally, if you will be in a hotel or somewhere with lots of wifi hotspots, you can use whatsapp, skype, etc. there without a new sim or europe package.
posted by melamakarona at 5:02 AM on November 24, 2024

Look into Google Fi. Works on iPhone SE. Provides coverage in Finland. Great service in the US, too, if you want to switch off CREDO.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 5:14 AM on November 24, 2024 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks for all your thoughts, everyone. I should probably add that my current carrier has iffy international coverage — so if I’m going to go that route, I do need to switch carriers (which is totally fine). I see one vote for T-Mobile and one against. Has anyone had experience with Mint’s international coverage? The pricing looks good — since I don’t travel often, their model of a daily international rate on top of a cheap base price is probably a better deal overall, but I want to make sure their network is good.

A note on WhatsApp/Skype/etc. My main use case is being able to receive voice calls in an emergency by 1. Hospital staff, 2. My elderly mother who cannot place international calls or text or use tools like WhatsApp. A tool that a nerd would use to save money on placing outgoing voice connections won’t work here. In a pinch my fallback is 3. my mom’s sister receives the calls and figures out how to reach me, and she has more of her wits about her with technology, but having a voice number is still best.
posted by eirias at 5:18 AM on November 24, 2024

Google Fi has worked well for last my few international trips, and it's month-to-month, so you can do it only for a month if you want. Rates are great for multiple lines (down to $25/line domestic) but expensive for fewer (for one line, $50 for domestic, $65 if you add international).
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 5:24 AM on November 24, 2024 [2 favorites]

Mint is owned by T-Mobile and should use the same networks, but not necessarily the same pricing for international roaming. If you're not going to go with one of the big 3 cellular carriers (T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T), then you are probably going to be using an MVNO or reseller in the US. Coverage should be the same as whatever one of the big three that MVNO is buying from or is owned by.

I would stick with T-Mobile so you can have the same number while roaming. I used them for a month in 2012 for just that reason. I got my number in the US and everything worked well in France and Belgium.
posted by soelo at 5:28 AM on November 24, 2024

Google Fi also uses the T-Mobile network - I generally check Wikipedia for that info.
posted by soelo at 5:31 AM on November 24, 2024 [1 favorite]

Another vote for T-Mobile. I was just in Europe (several countries) with family and those of us with T-Mobile had zero issues with speed or availability. It was so nice to step off the plane or cross a border and just have cell service and data that worked immediately.
posted by cooker girl at 7:42 AM on November 24, 2024 [1 favorite]

Saily.com advertised a bit as available almost anywhere. Their largest package is 25GB for $23.
posted by kschang at 8:38 AM on November 24, 2024

My two cents:

Point #1: keep your local line active on roaming inc voice calls in this case. Otherwise, especially if your friend network is on WhatsApp or Telegram etc, you can keep it off - your WhatsApp won't be confused just because the number is different if the device is the same. I tend to switch data roaming in that case - I get text messages through ok.

Point #2: E-SIMs by international apps bought beforehand are the most convenient especially if you're not sure about the destination airport wifi and also how they sell local sims to travellers. I also use Nomad and Simly as well as Airalo.

HOWEVER: If you can at least wait until you're at the destination airport, then get the local SIM (I prefer e-SIMs). Be sure to ask that all instructions come in English after they set it up for you. Or have someone local handy. Why: it's much cheaper AND you will have a useable phone number which in this case may be more important. (International e-SIMs are just for data - which is fine for everyone else not North American because barely anyone texts or use voice telephone calls - ppl use messaging apps for both)
posted by cendawanita at 11:22 PM on November 24, 2024

International e-SIMs are just for data - which is fine for everyone else not North American because barely anyone texts or use voice telephone calls - ppl use messaging apps for both

This isn't necessarily the case - Orange has a holiday eSIM with an assigned number. Actually using it felt precarious as hell, though. Outbound and inbound calls seemed to work fine for as little as I used them, but SMS/iMessage/etc was all over the damn place - I could use Messages with my wife (I suspect because that's just data), but I couldn't get new account approval SMSes from Uber or some other service I tried signing up for once I was in-country. But the place I bought glasses from was more than capable of texting me to say my order was ready, so... Got me.

Which is to say I'm not sure I'd recommend them as anything more than just a data provider (which was fine, but we were mostly in super-urban parts of Iceland, France and the UK, so YMMV), and maybe just using my domestic +1 number in telephony roaming would've been easier even with the potential additional costs.

And more directly to the original ask, I found this wiki both helpful and mildly out of date simultaneously, but it helps maybe give a bit of an overview of the rich variety of cellular access in Europe.
posted by Kyol at 7:15 AM on November 25, 2024