Traveling to Spain need tips on Coverage

[GordonChil]

I'm going to be traveling to Spain in a couple weeks and will be there for 2 weeks and need some hints on how to make sure I have complete coverage on my iPhone once I'm there. Was hoping someone from Europe or with experience traveling could give some advice...

I need to be able to make calls to the US. And it would be nice if I could make calls locally while there as well, though not as much of a necessity.

As far as I know my options are:

1. Do nothing and pay for roaming charges with ATT ($1.29/min + $.0195/KB)
2. Call ATT and tell them I'm traveling and get some sort of better rate temporarily from them?
3. Unlock my phone and get a prepaid sim from Vodaphone (or some other carrier) and possibly use phone card to call home to the US.
4. Something else...

Any help/advice would be appreciated.

[butwhyowhy]

My wife is traveling to spain next week and I was wondering what your solution was?

Anyone else have any advice? I would rather not keep the AT&T sim card in there... what phone cards can she buy that will work on the phone and supply her with voice and data there? (of course I know I will have to unlock the phone before she goes but I can re-lock when she returns)

Thanks...

[GordonChil]

My wife is traveling to spain next week and I was wondering what your solution was?

Anyone else have any advice? I would rather not keep the AT&T sim card in there... what phone cards can she buy that will work on the phone and supply her with voice and data there? (of course I know I will have to unlock the phone before she goes but I can re-lock when she returns)

Thanks...

I ended up going to the mall while there and signing up for a prepaid sim from Vodafone. I had to show them my passport and they copied some information down. And I of course had to unlock the phone while there. But it worked great. I paid about 30 euros for it and used it whenever we went out to get directions etc. And I used it to call home a lot as well. It also proved very useful to all the people with me.

I scoured the internet to find out how to recharge the sim with more money. Apparently you could do it from almost any ATM. I didn't end up recharging it, but that's where you do it if you need more minutes, kilobytes etc.

One more thing... I don't know how the unlock solutions work now, but I had to have the vodafone sim in the phone to 'unlock'. (It was quite a tedious process back in December if you ask me. It may be a lot better now). But this would be a problem for you if you plan on unlocking here. I believe you can buy the prepaid sims and maybe have it shipped internationally. Maybe something you'd like to check out.

[butwhyowhy]

Thanks for the information! I know my wife won't be able to unlock it herself. I will try to unlock it before she goes and hope that works otherwise she will have to buy a throw away phone of some sort.

Thanks agian!