Alright, I messed up on my overall planning efforts. I was hoping that we could manage the trip in Turkey with VoIP phone (FreeTone) and Wi-Fi via hotspot. I ordered the hotspot and all seemed to be moving forward smoothly. Until I started communicating with my Airbnb host yesterday. Now 4 days before departure. I realized that when we get to the airport in Istanbul we won’t have the Wi-Fi or cell service. Our cell service provider, Consumer Cellular (good and cheap) has no options for out of the US service.
So no cell service when at the airport and perhaps a need to reach our host. Or we somehow get horribly delayed and our host is waiting up all night for our arrival. I don’t know if pay phones still exist? Will they take a credit card or will I need to find change? At 11pm in a strange airport????
So I just started researching international sim cards. They are reasonably priced. They come with or without data and offer in country calling solutions. And better yet very low priced SMS messaging. My host seems to only use SMS…..
Unfortunately this is a tough lesson. It’s Friday and my only shipping options are FedEx express with an add-on charge of $20. Some other sites are even more, $55 for Saturday delivery and $37 for next business day, 10:30AM delivery.
I checked rates for 3-4 sim/data provides and found MaxRoam and Cellhire to have good calling/texting rates. MrSimCard.com is in the US and sells the MaxRoam so I’m placing the order now.
