Hi friends, and thanks for stopping by to see how I avoid big phone bills while travelling!
Some of you might be wondering how I make phone calls and use the Internet without incurring hefty bills.
After all I come from the land of Canada, home to the world’s highest cell phone charges. Most of the cell phone companies charge $15 or $16 a DAY (!!!???) in roaming charges if you use your cell phone outside of Canada.
And that totally sucks. Say you’re in the states and your phone rings and you answer it, whether that was accidental or not, that will be $15 please, says your cell phone provider. Same if you have to open your Maps app to look for directions.
Through some forums I visit I understand that other countries, like the United States, have much better cell phone plans for travellers.
So thanks for stopping by to see how I keep my cell phone costs down.
And let me add, forget about while travelling. This is the way to go even if you’re not travelling. Especially if you’re like me and you don’t get a lot of phone calls.
Go VOIP
So, what is VOIP?
Voice Over Internet Protocol.
This is a type of technology where people can make phone calls over the Internet. As long as you have an Internet connection, you can make free phone calls.
There are many providers of VOIP services. Generally this will give the user a free telephone number to use. Phone calls have to be made through the provider’s app.
Free phone calls are usually area specific. In other words if you sign up with a free VOIP provider in Canada and choose a Canadian phone number, your free phone calls would be limited to other phone numbers in Canada. It makes no difference if that phone number is a land line or a cell phone number.
I heard that I could get a free phone number with Google Voice. Upon closer inspection I found out it is only free if you’re in the United States!
I found a helpful article called 9 Ways to get a Free Phone Number in Canada on the Savvy New Canadians website.
Fongo Mobile
With the assistance of that website, I ended up going with Fongo Mobile that offers free Canada wide calling and I downloaded their app.
Fongo makes their money through a series of optional add-on services that the customer can purchase. For example, even though Fongo Mobile says they offer free Canada texting, it’s only free to another Fongo number. Unless everyone you know has signed up to Fongo Mobile, you’re going to be out of luck.
But not to fear. You can purchase a texting plan that is either for Canada only or Worldwide. Pricing? And this in Canadian dollars. For Canada wide it costs $17.99 a year. For Global, and that includes Canada, it costs $27.99 a year. I went for the Global plan, even though so far I’ve only been texting Canadian numbers, I just wanted to make sure I have the option to text people in America and internationally.
Fongo phone number
During the experimentation stage, I kept my cell phone active with Fido, my provider for many years. I wanted to work out the bugs and understand how the VOIP worked before shutting down my Fido account.
Originally Fongo assigned me a free British Columbia phone number. Fongo has an option to transfer an existing number for $25. It didn’t make a big difference to me whether I got a new phone number or kept my old number. One of the cautions I got was that sometimes VOIP numbers can’t receive some texts, say if your financial institution sends a security text during log in.
I experimented with a credit card company that I rarely use and changed the phone number. It went well. Then I tried to change my WhatsApp number and now I ran into an issue. I quickly cancelled what I was doing on WhatsApp. I decided to stick with my cell phone number that I’ve had for over 20 years and bought that add on to transfer over my existing number. I decided it would be easier to stick with it so I don’t have to change my contact information with my financial institutions.
Another way that Fongo makes money is with ads. At first the ads didn’t bother me. But then one day I couldn’t close the damned ad to make my phone call! How irritating! I think I had to reboot my phone. So I purchased the ad removal service. That costs $16.99 a year.
My yearly cell phone fees are $44.98.
Not bad!
Fongo Mobile credits
Every time a client buys an add-on from Fongo Mobile, they get credits. These can be applied to future purchases.
I had about $1.25 in credits and used up some of that money to make a couple of quick calls to a friend in Wales when I was taking a train to visit her. As is typical in England, trains are either delayed, cancelled, or on strike.
In my case, the train departing London was 40 minutes late, causing me to miss my connecting train in Birmingham and I had to wait two hours for the last train of the night.
That was an international call for me, costing .02¢ per minute. So Fongo has reasonable international calling rates. If my friend had a mobile phone I could have texted her or made a call on WhatsApp for free.
Yup. Only the second person I know who has resisted buying a cell phone.
Fongo referral
Fongo Mobile has a referral system. If someone signs up and uses my email address and purchases add-ons, they will receive a month free of the service they’re purchasing and I will also receive a month for free for the same ad-on.
I quoted the 12 month rates above for the add ons that I purchased with Fongo Mobile. They also offer monthly, 3 months, and 6 months pricing.
If you are signing up with Fongo Mobile, you can use my email as referral to get a free month on any add-ons you buy. To avoid getting spammed by bot crawlers, my email address is cheryl at thelifestyledigs dot com. You know the drill. Change the at for @ and make a proper dot and squish it all together!
Sims and eSims
A lot of travellers purchase a Sim card when they arrive at their destination country. This is also known as a subscriber identity module and points the user’s phone to the cell phone provider’s mobile network.
This is a physical card that must be put inside your cell phone in order for it work. You can do it yourself if you have a Sim card key, or the store where you purchase it from can probably insert if for you.
As long as you’re in that mobile provider’s range, you should be able to use your cell phone for calls and data.
An eSim does the same job, and is an electronic Sim card. You will not receive an actual card. Instead you manually type the eSim numbers into your phone, as long as it supports an eSim. Some phones can even support more than one eSim.
Note that you can only have one Sim or one eSim working at a time. You go into your phone’s settings and toggle on the one you need to use.
eSims are very easy to figure out, install, and activate on your phone. Cell phone providers may sell regional eSims in addition to an actual Sim card.
There are tech companies all over the Internet who sell a wide range of worldwide eSims.
Airalo
I use an eSim provider called Airalo. So far I have no complaints. I’ve recommended it to a few people who were having trouble with actual Sim cards purchased in Spain or whose cell phone providers were charging them an arm and a leg for roaming. Everyone installed it easily and were very happy with the service.
Airalo sells eSims that are country specific, or regional like Asia, Africa, Europe, etc, and global. You can purchase coverage for one week up to a year on some plans.
When I was in St. Vincent and The Grenadines volunteering on Mayreau Island, I purchased an eSim with Airalo that was only available for one week with 1 GB of data. There were no other options available. It cost USD $9 a week, about $13 Canadian dollars. I’d looked into local Sim cards, which aren’t easy to find, by the way. Their monthly plans were about the same price as what it cost me for a month of weekly renewals. So I just stuck with what I knew.
With Airalo, you can renew by purchasing more data or time before it runs out. The only thing I don’t like about Airalo is that any unused data does not carry over when you renew. Whatever comes first – the time limit or the data – I have to renew and any unused data is gone forever.
My eSim
I purchase a Global eSim from Airalo for one year and 20 GB of data for USD $69. This gives me coverage in about 125 countries. The number of countries might go up or down depending on what local cell phone carriers Airalo currently has contracts with.
In the United States, Airalo has partnered with Verizon and T-Mobile. As long as I’m in an area covered by one of these two companies, Airalo will pick up the signal.
In Canada, the cell phone coverage is provided by Telus, Bell, or Rogers. They’re everywhere, so I’ll always have coverage.
It doesn’t matter which of those 125 countries I’m in, I will have cell phone coverage as soon as I hit the ground.
How fast do I burn through the 20 GB? When I renewed at the end of 2023, I still had 10 GB of data leftover. As of late August, 2024, I have just over 15 GB left.
Obviously, everyone’s data use is going to vary. I don’t use my cell phone all that much, but I sure use the map app when getting around Europe. I save on data by logging on to free WiFi as much as possible. When I’m housesitting, I use the Internet at the house I’m staying at.
How’s the signal?
As long as I’m in an area that has coverage with one of Airalo’s partners, I have a cell phone signal and can make calls and surf the Internet.
So far there have really been no issues in Canada, England, and all the countries I visited in Europe on my big Eurail adventure.
When I was on Mayreau Island, the signal could be iffy. There is only one cell phone company in St. Vincent and The Grenadines, so spotty WiFi is not unusual there and other parts of the Caribbean.
Airalo does not take any responsibility if the user is somewhere that does not have a signal. Or a reliable signal.
Fongo Mobile and Airalo working together
As long as I have my Airalo eSim turned on and I’m in a country that has coverage, I have data. This means my Fongo Mobile works and I can make phone calls through the app.
I have these two companies working together to let me use my phone to make calls, texts, surf the Internet, and use my apps.
My Fongo Mobile costs me $44.98 a year. Let’s say converted into Canadian dollars the one year Airalo plan costs me $100.
That works out to about $12.50 a month. In Canadian dollars! That’s less than $10 a month in US dollars!
I’m not a big phone user, and if you aren’t either, you might want to save money and do what I’m doing. Whether you’re travelling or not.
If you’re planning on signing up, compare several plans, which are all priced in US dollars.
I can buy a plan for Canada only, but the maximum coverage they offer is 30 days and 20GB for USD $49.
Yikes!
It’s a better deal to go with the Global plan and get a year for $69 and Canada is one of the 125 countries included.
Same thing in America. The maximum plan Airalo sells is one month and 20 GB for USD $42. The one year global plan is a better deal.
Airalo referral code and bonus bucks
There are other eSim companies out there, but over and over I see Airalo commonly recommended by happy users.
If you plan to sign up to Airalo, please use my referral code to get a couple of bucks off.
CHERYL4159
And yes, literally a few bucks. If you buy an eSim with Airalo, you will get USD $3 off your purchase and I will receive a $3 credit.
But every little bit counts!
Every time you buy or renew a plan with Airalo, you earn money credits that can be cashed out for a small discount the next time you renew.
I had to keep renewing the plan in the Caribbean weekly, so a couple of times I cashed out my credits which pretty much bought the next week’s coverage.
How to avoid big phone bills while travelling
Everyone has different needs when it comes to their cell phones and how many calls they make and time spent online.
I have never been a big cell phone user. This stems from when cell phones first came out and making calls was pretty expensive. My cell phone was only there for emergencies.
I have evolved! A little bit anyway.
My secret to avoiding big cell phone bills while travelling is a combo of using a VOIP service and a global eSim.
That doesn’t even have to be a travelling secret. Once I find a place to settle down, I might not even bother going back to a regional cell phone provider.
Look at the money I save doing the VOIP/eSim combo. Before I became a nomad I was spending around $40 a month on a cell phone plan that gave me unlimited calls in Canada, international texting, and 6 GB of data a month, that I never came close to using up.
I’m saving almost $30 a month or $360 a year. It doesn’t sound like a whole lot of money but it can go towards other travel expenses instead of paying a cell phone bill.
How do you avoid big phone bills? Drop a line in the comments with your suggestions.
Published by Cheryl @ The Lifestyle Digs on August 19, 2024.
