Best way to keep in touch with home on the Viva Italia adventure?

[cindy21494]

We leave 2 weeks from tomorrow to start our Viva Italia Adventure and are trying to figure out how to keep in touch with everyone here at home.

We have our own business and need to keep in touch with people say every other day in case problems arise. Would it be best to get an international cell phone, or bring a laptop? I keep seeing Wi-Fi is available at the hotels, but is it free? When we went to Germany years ago, we had to pay for an all day package for internet and it was very expensive.

What my DH would like to do is use his cell phone to get his emails and maybe make 10 minute calls every other day. We don't want to rack up expensive charges though....

Anyone with experience with this, please help! haha

 

[carpenta]

In Europe you can purchase cheap cell phones with a prepaid amount of minutes in kiosks and machines. We purchased an "Eurobuzz" cell phone over the internet here in the U.S and with that your own phone #) much like a prepaid phone here in the U.S. and it works well for us. It is about $25.00 or so for the phone/charger/etc. and pay for the minutes as you go.If you have an I phone or other phones a chip can be "opened" to use the European wave band. Also there are free sights located at different spots in the cities and we have stayed in hotels where they give you their code to use the internet. Some are free and some are charged. I hope someone else with experience can help with the exact hotels involved. Don't forget Europe is 6 hours ahead so don't make a mistake like us and call at an "inappropriate" time.

 

[Kez250]

DH also has his business and needed to keep somewhat in touch

We came back a couple of weeks ago now and here is what we found

In the hotel in Rome - there is free wi-fi in the lobby only.
In Tuscany it's free throughout the hotel, the strongest signal is in the Lobby they also have a computer in the lobby which i think was hard wired which you can use
There is free but limited wifi on the train to Venice i.e. no youtube or streaming but general email was fine
in Venice no free wifi in the hotel at all

We had an international call and text plan put in place for urgent issues - switched off data roaming.

Hope this helps

K.

 

[Alacrity]

As a gadget geek I did some research on this before my trip!

If you have a phone that is capable of International use (GSM) you may be able to turn on international roaming (Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile have some GSM phones. There are others I'm sure.). It can be expensive per-minute if you use it a lot. I did this on our trip just in case we needed it and turned it off after getting back home. I turned off mobile data until I wanted to use it and turned it off again when done to limit data access. Going over the data limits can be very expensive.

I also found that, if you have an international, SIM capable phone (and it is not SIM card locked internationally) you can stop by stores in the country and purchase a pre-paid SIM to use while there. There was a post a while back about someone doing just that. I don't recall all the details but availability should be pretty common and it seems the most cost effective solution if you are going to use it a fair amount. EDIT: found the link: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2939779&highlight=italy+data


I also did some checking on companies that will sell international SIMs in the US as well as small international wifi-to-cellular hot spots. telestial.com and onesimcard.com are examples of these. www.xcomglobal.com and others, rent the hotspots (MiFi). AT&T, I believe, may also have an option too. International phones are available through them as well if you don't have a GSM/SIM card capable phone.

 

[lovetotravel]

We leave 2 weeks from tomorrow to start our Viva Italia Adventure and are trying to figure out how to keep in touch with everyone here at home.

We have our own business and need to keep in touch with people say every other day in case problems arise. Would it be best to get an international cell phone, or bring a laptop? I keep seeing Wi-Fi is available at the hotels, but is it free? When we went to Germany years ago, we had to pay for an all day package for internet and it was very expensive.

What my DH would like to do is use his cell phone to get his emails and maybe make 10 minute calls every other day. We don't want to rack up expensive charges though....

Anyone with experience with this, please help! haha

We kept in touch via our iphones only on wifi. We kept it on airplane mode all the time and used wifi when it was available. We did bring the laptop, but used it only once. With wifi, you should able to use skype and tango to chat, video chat, and call. One of the people on our trip got an international sim card. Or keep your own sim and you can also check your phone plan. I know with AT&T you can add international phone and data. Most of us on the trip used email to keep in touch, particularly since with the time change, it would have been difficult to talk to someone awake back home anyway.

For Rome: Hotel Bernini Bristol
Wifi is free only in the lobby. If you are lucky, you can get it to connect at the breakfast room upstairs. My child claimed that the wifi worked in the elevator until about the 3rd floor, so perhaps if you have a lower room, it would connect. Using the wifi required a password that they gave you and it was difficult to use with having to clear the cookies, etc. just right to get it working. It was very frustrating. I sometimes went to the cafe across the street just to use the free wifi. It was expensive to buy wifi for the room for a few hours. There is 1 computer near the downstairs gym if you need to use it.

For Tuscany: Hotel Borgo di Cortefreda
Wifi is was free, easier to log into, and could be used throughout the hotel. But it is very, very, slow, especially during high traffic times. We would joke that it was like using dialup wifi. If you can use it when the hotel is empty or during the early mornings, you might have better luck. Using it after dinner when everyone was in their rooms was a nightmare.

For Venice: Hotel Luna Baglioni
We had to pay for wifi and got a code. It might have been around 14 euros per stay, but it was the most reliable in speed, connection, and could be used throughout the hotel.

 

[cindy21494]

Thank you for all the replies!! We are leaning towards getting the international sim card when we get there and using the computers at the hotels if we need to. I really don't want to bring our laptop if we don't need to. One less thing I have to carry around.

We are getting so excited. The box came last week!

Thanks again!!

 

[lovetotravel]

Thank you for all the replies!! We are leaning towards getting the international sim card when we get there and using the computers at the hotels if we need to. I really don't want to bring our laptop if we don't need to. One less thing I have to carry around.

We are getting so excited. The box came last week!

Thanks again!!

Good plan! The less you bring, the more room for souvenirs! Plan your bags accordingly Have a great time!