What SIM to use on a European Cruise

My family recently went on a European Cruise. We were going to visit Spain, Italy, and France. We wanted to have data to use Google Maps to navigate and for our larger group of 7 to keep in touch if we went different ways. I went to all my favorite tech sites to see what SIM I should get for these countries. Most of the sites steered me towards using a different SIM for each country. But I didn’t really want to get 3 different SIMs. It seemed costly and needlessly complicated.

I talked to a few friends and found an easier solution. I got a SIM from the UK. I know that seems counter-intuitive, but Three, a carrier in the UK has free roaming to many countries in Europe including Spain, France and Italy. The trick was to get my hands on a SIM and activate it from the US.

Fortunately, I have family that lives in the UK. I was able to get Three to send a free SIM to my Aunt and she sent it to me in the US. Others could make a friend on Reddit or similar site to help them out. The SIM that came could be a nano, Micro or regular sized SIM. You just pop out the size that you need.. In the picture above, it is color coded along the different lines to help you pop out the right size

Once I got the SIM, it turns out that Three only accepts UK based Credit cards to activate the device. Big problem, since I don’t have a card like that. So I had to find an online vendor that would sell me a Three voucher with a US based Credit Card. Once I purchased that voucher, I got a code that I could use to add that credit to my SIM card on the Three website. Once I had the credit applied, I could pick a plan. I picked a plan that had unlimited data, 300 minutes and 3000 text messages for 20 Pounds (~$30) and was good for 30 days. This let me use the device pretty much as much as I wanted for the 10 days in Europe with a single SIM.

I didn’t get 4G service ever while roaming. I got mostly 3G service, which was enough to do what I needed. It was great to have data and a phone in case I needed one while walking around strange cities. I’d recommend trying this to anyone headed to multiple countries in Europe who doesn’t want to pay for US roaming charges.

Please note: It is very important that your phone isn’t network locked, otherwise it won’t read a SIM from another carrier. If you don’t know if your phone is network locked or not, I suggest you call your provider prior to you trip abroad and ask for the code to unlock your phone.