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Grr! Why?! One of the great tips for traveling internationally is to download an offline Google Map of the area you're visiting so you can find your way even when you don't have cellular or Wi-Fi access. Japan has blocked this feature for years . I have no idea why , but I have a lot of awesome conspiracy theories, most of which involve competing map products' CEO's belonging to the same country club as Japan's Google liaison. But we're in the big run-up to the 2020 Olympics and all signs point to the fact that Japan is attempting in earnest to make things easier for visitors – expanding Wi-Fi access, adding more English/Chinese/Korean signage, standardizing the buttons on their famous toilets... So why the f&*k is this super-convenient feature still being blocked ? As an alternative, I've used Here maps . I've also heard many folks praise Maps.me . Navitime and Citymapper are also super useful for navigating Tokyo.   Furthermore… Whi...

Most American cellular companies now offer data and calling plans where Canada and Mexico enjoy a special roaming status not bestowed on other international destinations. If you read the ads, you're generally led to believe that usage in our two nearest neighbors is considered "domestic" – even at full LTE speeds. For most one- or two-week vacations, this is effectively true. I'd heard rumors online that people on longer visits had their service throttled or completely cut off by T-Mobile if the majority of their cellular usage in a single billing period is Canada/Mexico roaming. Well, I just got that dreaded text today, March 14th. For the record: My billing cycle resets on the 22nd of each month . I got to Mexico Jan 26th , and have been back in the states since March 4th. Now, at this point, I don't care if they throttle my Can/Mex roaming for the rest of this billing cycle because I'm back home, but I am curious what would have happened if I...

I'm just back from a trip to Berlin. I've been testing out T-Mobile USA's service for the past year and have had generally good results with their free international roaming – the 2G speed is slow but good enough for messaging and for getting un-lost, and most importantly, it's FREE . A few days into this trip my phone suddenly lost the ability to access the cellular data network. I tried most of the standard tricks (rebooting my phone, trying Chrome instead of Safari, etc.) and nothing worked. I talked with their technical support folks over their website's chat function and they weren't able to get me going either. I just kept getting the error "Could not activate cellular data network". What eventually worked for me was this: Find a location with both Wi-Fi and good cellular service Verify that you're able access the internet over the Wi-Fi connection On your phone, go to Settings > General > About Wait a bit Click Update if/when...

AT&T announced a new international roaming option today called International Day Pass . Long story short: it's probably not worth it . I was really hoping that they'd overhaul their plans to include free 2G data like T-mobile, and then have something like this day pass to get 24 hours of high-speed internet. Or perhaps keep their existing passport plans and simply say "your speed drops to 2G once you've used up all your plan megabytes. You pay $10 per day, per device to access the data pool in your US plan, so you're still chewing through your megabytes back home while you roam At that pricing, a two-week vacation for two people is a $280 supplement on top of your bill As friends pointed out me, though, this might be a great plan if you're traveling alone on a short trip, and you're a heavy user on an unlimited plan back in the US Renting a Mi-Fi in most countries is $5 a day and you can share that data with your travel companions There are fur...

We're on our big Japan trip right now and got some good news yesterday: AT&T is adding Wi-Fi calling for customers with newer iPhones running the latest version of iOS . While we don't talk on the phone much even when we're in USA, this will definitely help keep the costs down when we do. While there have long been alternatives (Skype, FaceTime), I still have to receive work calls on a normal US mobile number and that means per-minute charges. This new feature will let me do that for free while I'm on Wi-Fi. To enable Wi-Fi calling, go to Settings > Phone > Wi-Fi Calling and turn it on. More information here and here . My personal tips for reducing international roaming charges are here . Your carrier info changes when Wi-Fi calling is enabled Enable Wi-Fi calling in your Preferences

updated April 2023 International roaming (using your home mobile phone on a foreign carrier's network while you're traveling) used to be insanely expensive. With the widespread adoption of eSIMs, it's gotten a lot simpler and cheaper. We've used Ubigi and GigSky eSIMs and have had good luck with both of them.  We've also used T-Mobile's free and paid International Roaming options. The free option is fine for texting but too slow for normal usage. The paid plan is faster, but is still 3x the price per GB of an Ubigi eSIM. Plus, T-Mobile's website is just awful to use and I've actually had difficulty on several occasions trying to purchase their paid roaming plan.  eSIM data has gotten so cheap that it might not even be worth worrying about trying to throttle your own usage. I mean, once you account for flights, hotel, souvenirs, dining, and drinking, your vacation is probably costing you north of $40 an hour. Why waste one of these $40 hours trying to s...