Thoughts? SIM Itinerary for European Trip
 

I have settled on the following SIM cards for our European trip in August. We need affordable calls to each other in the same country, and affordable data access. I would appreciate any thoughts or suggestions :D

Country Company
Croatia VIPNet (Widely available)
Italy (some rural) Wind (Not sure where to purchase)
UK / Wales Three Pre-Paid (3 Shops?)
Austria Yess (purchase at Hoffer)

We have not worked out - so any suggestions will be very gratefully received :o

Bosnia
France

Stuck on getting a codice fiscale for Italy in advance, web service keeps saying incomplete data but I'll work it out somehow.

Can I get all the other SIM cards with just a passport?

AFAIK you don't need any ID in Austria. Also you might want to double-check what free roaming arrangements 3/drei has in UK and Austria. You may be able to use your 3 SIM in Austria without the need to get a separate one from Yesss.

Three do have roaming arrangements for Australian Three customers (3 Like Home) which is ok for call rates, but still 50c / MB, and if we need to call ahead to another country to check bookings or whatever, then we pay Australian international rates. Also concerned about roaming rates if the phone switches over to another network, without knowing, and then getting hit for $500 in calls and data.

If I can work out VoIP on my HTC Desire then I could just use that, or I suppose we could just get some cheap phone cards if we really need to call internationally. Most of our calls will be to each other and my wife being happy that she can check her voicemail, although we will forward our home VoIP line to whatever local number we have.

So Italy is the only country we need to pre-arrange anything to get a SIM card? All other countries you just need a passport at the most? I have now created two Codice Fiscale's for my wife and I using the website.


Three Like Home

UK, Hong Kong, Italy, Sweden, Austria, Denmark and Ireland. Standard roaming rates will be charged if you are roaming on another network

Call Description Rate*
To receive calls FREE
Voice/Video calls made to Australia or to other mobiles/landlines within roaming country 35¢ per 30 secs*
Voice/Video calls made to other countries Country dependent - as per the international call rate from Australia to the country you are calling
Voicemail retrieval from within roaming country 35¢ per 30 secs*
SMS/MMS from your mobile Charged as per individual rate plan1
Mobile Web/Broadband Use/Use of handset as a modem within roaming country 50¢ per MB

Get an Italian 3 card and you can use it in Austria and UK too. And 3 Italy has some very good data options.

We have Three Like Home at 50 Australian cents / MB in UK / Italy and Austria, however I imagine we will still require quite a bit of data so a pre-paid 3 card in the UK sounds best, and Yesss in Austria too - although we have our Australian 3 cards as a backup in case we need it. We also land in the UK first, and I think we go to Italy after Austria (Vienna).

We are also not sticking to the cities in Italy (Amalfi Coast) so 3 may not work outside of the cities? I thought in this case WIND would be the better option in Italy. Thank you for replying btw.

Ok, if you go to Italy at last that's impossible. Unfortunately in UK there's not 3 Like Home anymore. BTW 3 Austria has cheap tariffs, expecially for calling another 3 AT number.

So when we get off the plane in the UK, if we switch on our phones with our 3 Australia SIM cards in them, we will immediately start being hit with insane prices for everything? So we should not switch our phones on until we can find the nearest 3 store near the airport in London? Is 3 Austria also a good option as well as Yesss Austria?

No, I wanted to mean that 3 UK has not the 3 Like Home option anymore. 3 Australia has, don't worry.
About 3 Austria: it's not as cheap as Yesss, but if you use it mainly for calling other 3 Austria numbers it's free... just read HERE