Traveling abroad this summer? Here are the best tips to avoid roaming phone bills

Modern smartphones make international travel a breeze compared to the past. Android or iOS supercomputers in your pocket have all downloadable apps and offer the ability to smoothly stock up on hotel rooms, navigate cities, translate signage through cameras and pay for goods and services. With the latest software upgrades, you can translate conversations in real time with AI-driven features, and even consult your AI-driven assistant for travel tips.

All these beautiful phone features and applications can be used over a data connection and sometimes even work only. While this is covered by your domestic plan, traveling abroad often brings additional roaming costs. This is how to avoid these allegations.

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First, you need to know how expensive these extras are, or whether you are heading to areas where the carrier is cheap or free. Some mobile operators have partnered with airlines in other countries for more affordable roaming and even free services, despite some restrictions. For example, some plans (e.g., essentials for T-Mobile) offer free services in Canada and Mexico, but only at slow, 2G or 3G speeds. So don't expect to stream too much video on that connection.

However, traveling to most countries will require you to pay for mobile roaming when trying to use data services, make voice calls or send text messages on your phone. If this is your plan, check out our guide for the best travel phone plan.

If you want to avoid mobile roaming fees, please remember these tips.

Set up a mobile service before leaving

Some carriers will let you choose travel service options in advance, including a fixed daily, weekly or monthly fee to get services from partner carriers in other countries. You can wait until you arrive at your destination and wait for a prompt to select the selected service, or you can set it up in advance. Please note that some carriers will only default to you using these services, rather than charge you a higher roaming fee, although it is worth confirming before travelling.

These international programs are very convenient, although some may cause warnings, such as being deprived of behind other operator customers, which means you are slower during peak traffic hours. Check out the fine print of each trip plan to see its limitations and the additional service charges you may have to pay.

Verizon's international plan started with a simple start, with $10 a day of high-speed data and unlimited 3G speed data and unlimited 3G speed data since then, as well as free voice calls and text messages in more than 210 countries. The program is discounted to $5 per day in Canada and Mexico.

If you have one of the latest plans for operators, “Infinite Plus and Infinite Welcome”, you will get these features from Canada and Mexico. Customers with Verizon's best unlimited ultimate choice will provide this international data for Canada and Mexico, as well as over 210 countries.

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AT&T has similar $10 per day travel plans for unlimited data, voice calls and text. The data violates your usual plan allowance; doing so will result in charges and/or slowdowns on downloading of 2G-like connections. If you do not sign up for this program, traditional roaming fees will begin, each text message, data within the data range, and voice calls.

Unlimited data for Canada and Mexico are included in AT&T’s main unlimited plans, while the carrier’s unlimited PLIM PL and unlimited elite plans also allow unlimited data in 20 Latin American countries.

T-Mobile has its own international plan with unlimited calls, but the data is very modest, starting at $5 a day, half a gigabyte of downloaded data. Remember that the carrier's standard plan also includes some international data allowances.

In Canada and Mexico, the basic magenta and GO5G plan provides up to 10GB of high-speed data in Canada and Mexico, and once run out, get unlimited data at very slow 2G speeds (as mentioned earlier, the cheapest essentials plan can only get data in Canada and Mexico at 2G speeds). Next Go5g, GO5G Plus and Magenta Max plan to have a 5GB monthly travel allowance in high-speed data in over 215 countries, although this may be subject to potential additional taxes and conditions. The standard GO5G program receives the same 5GB data allowance in 11 European countries.

While you may run into your plan (or more) plans you are traveling and returning to your old plan, it may be easier to pay for international data only.

Get mobile services directly from local operators

Before operators become more friendly to the international agreements that support customers with each other is to get services directly from the airlines in the country you are traveling. Once you land, you will only walk into the local airline’s retail store and get a prepaid SIM card to last your travel time.

It is still possible today, but more complicated. If you have one of the many phones that lack a physical emulation slot, including the latest iPhone 15 series and Samsung Galaxy S24 series, you must sign up for the service through one of the ESIM accounts on the device. This is easy to do and is actually one of the benefits of having multiple digital ESIM slots – so you can use one for domestic use and one for travel – but it requires you to register through the relevant carrier. You can even load ESIM before traveling, through apps like Airalo and Ubigi.

Unfortunately, there are other things to consider: whether your phone is unlocked, i.e. tied to the carrier, but instead uses ESIM restrictions from other carriers (or even international carriers). It's clear if you purchased the device and it's unlocked.

If you are paying off your phone from your carrier’s installment payment, that’s complicated. Verizon users are the best because their installment plan unlocks the phone after 60 days. However, AT&T and T-Mobile require you to complete installments and fully repay your phone to unlock. Since AT&T's plan has at least 36-month installments, customers may lose their luck unless they are close to the end of the contract – in this case, it may make sense to pay the balance for more freedom to travel.

Rely on hot spots and constraints

Another way to avoid roaming is to have more roundabouts that require you to register for services with your local operator, but you don't have to fiddle with ESIM. When you land in the country you travel, you can rent a mobile hotspot (or register a service in one you already have), a handheld device that converts cell phone signals to Wi-Fi.

Note that you still have to pay for the service from Hotspot Maker or local operators and there is no guarantee that their network will play well with a given hotspot device. Check if it works in the area you are heading to.

Once set up, you just need to connect to the hotspot Wi-Fi using your phone. While this is a little cumbersome, it also allows you to get internet for other devices such as tablets and laptops, and you can get phone signals from your local carriers.

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Another caveat is that you need to keep the hotspot itself charged, which is another device battery you have to worry about. It may be worth carrying an external battery to ensure your hotspot lasts all day while you are out.

Ultimately, no matter which option you choose, it should suit your travel habits and destination. The collaborative choices of some operators will be more attractive, but slower than getting services directly from local airlines. However, don't worry about being locked in the selection: you can always try to arrive whenever you want, and if a better option appears, you can switch to another method.