My initial thought about getting online during our trip was to get prepaid SIM cards in each country where we plan to spend enough time to make it worthwhile.
This would work fine, but it means we’ll have some offline time, either when we first enter a new country, or when we go through countries for just a few days when it’s not worth it to get a SIM card.
I just learned about Google Project Fi, a worldwide cell service that works in 130+ countries and costs just $10/GB for data coverage, worldwide!
The catch is that you have to have one of 3 Google phones. Being an iPhone user, this is kind of a bummer because we’ll have to carry an extra device, but it does have some benefits:
- The plan supports tethering, so with just one phone, we can get online abroad with up to 10 devices.
- There is no bandwidth limiting so we can get up to 4G speeds in any country.
- The iPhone should be able to support iCloud backup because it will appear as a WiFi hotspot vs a data connection.
- My bike computer will only sync routes over WiFi, so having a hotspot is better than having multiple SIM cards for each phone (that may not support tethering).
- We will have an extra phone with us in case one of ours has a problem.
- I’ll maintain a single phone number anywhere in the world, which is important for 2 factor authentication, not to mention making it easier for friends and family to reach us.
There may still be times where it makes sense to get local SIM cards, but it’s hard to beat $10/GB and the convenience this will offer us.