Getting a Cellphone Abroad is Something You Should Do

As much as going to another country is a chance to experience another culture, it is often a chance to travel technologically back in time. This was a time, prior to this decade, when entire Seinfeld episodes could be written around the comical adventures that ensue when direct communication was not available. Cell phones did not exist, and any hypothetical meeting up between two separate entities involved meticulous planning and unparalleled trust. The exact place and time of meeting had to be specified hours in advance and several contingency plans had to be discussed. Now of course, when you get off the subway hoping to meet your friend in the village the convenience of technology allows you to get a comforting text message along the lines of "sup brah still in brooklyn c u n 30 sorry". If you are traveling abroad and hope to have the same stress-free, informal meet-ups that you are used to, you need to get your cellphone to work abroad.


While a little dated, the NYT has already published a pretty comprehensive guide -- we hope to add our own experiences and reccomendations here. We assume you have a GSM phone and want to use it somewhere else. The best way to do this is to unlock your phone, and swap your SIM card (a la Stringer Bell in season 3) to a prepaid one that works in the country you are in.

To unlock your phone, the best way is to call your cellphone company and ask for the unlock instructions, which are specific for every model of phone. Explain that you are traveling abroad temporarily and want to use a prepaid SIM while you are there. Basically, you don't want them to think you will use the instructions to jump contract to another carrier. AT&T emailed them to us in a quite hassle-free manner. You may want to try out the unlock codes before you travel because they may have sent you the wrong one.

The second step is to get a functional prepaid SIM card. It is tempting to buy one online before you travel, but at this point our reccomendation is to buy one once you get there. Overall we had a poor experience with the SIM card we bought from Telestial, the most legit looking vendor we found. For starters, registration involved emailing a copy of our passport to them. Then, the SIM card didn't even work once we arrived at our destination. We ended up using a SIM card purchased there that was kindly donated to us by a traveling companion. We never saw, even once, a recharge vendor for the SIM brands offered by Telestial. While our monosylibic grunts used hardly 1 euro from the 10 euro starting balance, having the option to buy more minutes is another good reason to buy one of the popular prepaid card brands sold there. Telestial's return process was quick and fairly straightforward, but they do not refund fees and shipping even when the product they sold was defective. So, for a 48$ purchase, we only got 39$ back. Thanks for nothing, Telestial.