Ok, so another thing I had to check out was what it would actually cost to take my mobile abroad. I am on a contract with 3 mobile, I got a bloody good deal so didn’t really want to cancel it and pay all the money to terminate the contract early.

Neither did I want to spend a fortune making calls here there and everywhere without knowing what the charges are.

Three.co.uk

For those of you unaccustomed with European phone usage it works like this: buy a phone / sim card in one country – easy enough. Want to take it past that country’s borders? You have to have roaming added to your sim card and then of course pay for the privelege of using it outside of your “home” network. I’ll bet people living in Lichtenstein get a bit annoyed, the border is only ever 5 minutes away!

So I found all my rates from my network provider and here are my costs for usage abroad. Just another thing to add to the ever expanding “budget”.

So my rates are as follows.  For Denmark, Sweden, Austria and Italy I can recieve calls and text messages for free, becuase three have partner networks here.  It is also cheaper to call and text to others, costing just 15pence per minute / per sms.

In all the other countries I am travelling through there are no “partner networks”  so it will be 15 pence per minute to recieve a call /sms and 34 pence to make a call and 25 pence to send an sms message.

I haven’t had look at any other providers as I find my contract useful when I am at home for “normal” living”. I would suggest you have a look at other options if you are planning to travel and not keep your home contract.

Either that or go old school.  Phone cards often represent the best value for calling outisde of the country’s borders and for long ditance calls I don’t think anything can beat them.

Or you can go new school, get your parents / family or whomever you want to talk to to get skype, login at one of the millions of internet cafes and talk for free.

Lovely Jubly!

Happy Travelling