Searching for a way to stay connected, we discovered the least worst option is to find a mobile broadband account for each country, avoiding insanely expensive roaming charges, while not needing an even more expensive satellite system or having to rely on seriously hard to find free WiFi.
Here is a list of notes on each country we visit, with info on the providers available. This will no doubt go out of date fairly quickly, but it may at least give some idea of what’s out there.
Hi Mike,
if your plans will guide you to Germany – there I would recommend the pre-paid line of http://www.Simyo.de its working pretty well and not to expensiv.
Regards, Sebastian
Thanks Sebastian – that’ll be very helpful.
Hey guys, Anyone know good mobile broadband / prepaid or other wise in France , Spain and Portugal?
I’m travelling over the next few weeks/months in these countries and need my broadband on the move.
Adrian
Hi Adrian – I’m afraid I haven’t got to that research yet! If you settle on a carrier, please let me know who you decide on.
Hi Michael,
The French can be fickle with most things :-) The Achuan deal looks the best but did you find it limited to coverage in and near metropolitan areas?
I plan on being near the coast mostly…
Are you in France at the moment. I plane on taking my van across the channel next week. Heading down the coast toward Lacanau and Barritz.
Adrian :-)
Hiya Adrian,
I’m still in the UK – we are getting the ferry over on Tuesday. Might see you there ;-)
Still not sure what we’ll do – probably go without for now, since this time we’re just passing through France to Italy. Orange might offer me something, since I’m planning on buying an iPhone outright from them upon arrival (I need it for testing, given that I’m an iPhone developer), although it’s unlikely. I agree with you that Auchan seems least worst, although charging €30 for 2 gb of data should still be illegal =)
Hi Michael, nice blog you have.
In case you’d pass through Belgium, you could make use of the thousands of Telenet Hotspots all over the country (a password for free access could be arranged). Telenet also offers prepaid solutions.
In the Netherlands it seems fairly easy to find non-secured wifi-networks (or maybe I was just lucky). There’s almost no traffic limitation there, so maybe for that people care less about securing their network. Otherwise T-Mobile offers prepaid broadband (4.50 euro/day), and KPN has hotspots all over the country as well.
As for Spain, the only thing I know is that the camping park of Zaragoza offers free wifi. Some poor advice, I know. :-)
Enjoy the rest of your trip. Cheers, Peter
Cheers, Peter! That’s good to know – we’ll certainly be travelling through all three at some point. Thanks =)
Good work guys, I get questions about this all of the time. Might have to refer some customers to your notes. (if that is OK)
Hi Michael, We’ll soon be travelling around Europe and UK for 4 months. The plan is to buy GoSim int’l cards, which we pop into our unlocked phones once we land in Italy. Any thoughts on how successful this will be for us? We both have iphones, no computers. thanks for your help. Karen
Hi Karen, I’m afraid I’ve had no experience with that product, and with your kind of usage – I couldn’t say!