One thing that I have realized as I’ve traveled more and more is how helpful it is to have cell phone data service. In the past I managed with wifi where I could find it–pretty consistently in hotels, but more and more in cafes, restaurants, airports, etc. But for someone as directionally challenged as me, being able to consult a map at any moment is a game changer. I know that you can download maps.me or Google maps and use the phone’s GPS to get around, but that never seems to work for me. And I get lost ALL THE TIME so I have really come to rely on Google maps to get me where I need to be. There’s also something so nice about being able to check out a restaurant’s reviews or search for something you want to see or do at the spur of the moment.
Buying a local SIM card was a piece of cake to do in Portugal–I bought one at the airport, for I think €15 for 15 days and the guy in the shop set it up for me in 5 minutes. In London there was a store near my hotel where they helped me choose a card from various companies based which one that had the best price for what I needed. I think that one cost about £10, and the employee of the shop also got me connected in a matter of minutes so I figured it would be the same in Paris. Wrong!
In France you can either buy a SIM card at a cell phone store, like Orange, the main company there, or at a tobacco shop. The day I arrived in Paris, I tried a tobacco shop near my hotel but the girl working there didn’t speak much English and I wasn’t sure what she was trying to sell me– I understood that it would cost something like €10 for the card and €10 for the data but she also said if it didn’t work there would be no refunds. So I didn’t buy it. The official cell phone stores were all closed that first day, being a Sunday, so I had to wait until Monday. I went to an Orange store, and after waiting in line for about 20 minutes, learned that the card would cost me €40. That included international calling, which I didn’t need, but they offered no other option. Now as much as I’m addicted to the internet, I’m also cheap, and $46 to be connected for a one week vacation seemed a bit excessive. Another company had their store across the street. It was a shorter wait there but the price was the same. So I decided that if I couldn’t find something cheaper, I was going to just do this old school. I mean, we all survived before the internet, right?
Throughout that day, I stopped in at every store I passed with the “Tabac” sign outside to ask if they sold SIM cards. Some clerks didn’t speak English, some didn’t sell them and some just seemed sketchy, like the one that tried to sell me a card that was clearly used. Finally I lucked out. One shop offered a card from a company called Lebara, which I never heard of, and the SIM card plus 4 gigs of data was €15. I also wouldn’t pay for it until the card was in my phone and I had a connection. The poor guy in the shop spent probably a half an hour helping me to set it up. Thank goodness he did because I wouldn’t have had a clue how to do it, between my lack of technological skills and the fact that the instructions were only in French. But he finally did it. Good thing too, because I was convinced my hotel was in the absolute opposite direction coming out of the shop than it actually was.
Ah France, you really like to make things complicated, don’t you?
Fierce Sunflower 