Mobile phone sim/plan for USA and Canada

[Kaylacool]

We are sailing from Sydney to Vancouver and then up into Alaska.  We will be overseas for around 70 days and are looking to buy a sim card for mobile phone use mainly to be contactable and communicate with family back in Australia.

Does anyone have recent experience with purchasing a mobile phone sim and phone plan etc. they could recommend that will give coverage for both USA and Canada? 

thanks

Kayla 

[Gnomey]

Hi Kayla,

We did USA & Canada a couple of years ago and used the Vodafone $5.00 a day international roaming with our Australian account. It worked well and you only pay for it if you use it, in 24 hour blocks. When I investigated you needed a different sim for USA and Canada which was going to be a pain. We also looked out for free WiFi which was patchy at best. Having said that you can buy a phone anywhere for little cost and then just toss it, just like they show in the movies!

Regards, Steve.

[Fletch1]

I have previously purchased sim cards from Simcorner, but only for Europe, not for USA/Canada. They have been perfect for our needs, and worked fine. But to contact Aust, you will have to use Skype of facetime or similar. 

 

Have a look and see if it suits.......

 

https://www.simcorner.com/shop/usa.html

 

 

[Chiliburn]

23 hours ago, Kaylacool said:

We are sailing from Sydney to Vancouver and then up into Alaska.  We will be overseas for around 70 days and are looking to buy a sim card for mobile phone use mainly to be contactable and communicate with family back in Australia.

Does anyone have recent experience with purchasing a mobile phone sim and phone plan etc. they could recommend that will give coverage for both USA and Canada? 

thanks

Kayla 

I don’t know if it’s changed but you used to have a US address to get a sim.

If you’re got a smartphone you can use the internet in hotels for free to make phone calls.

ask your provider 

 

We just use global roaming it’s quite reasonable but turn your internet off.

When making wifi calls in a hotel or the ship.Put your phone on airplane mode and enable the message app.The phone will use the wifi.

 

like I said talk to your phone provider.

[Chiliburn]

Here’s Telstra one.

 

[ilikeanswers]

Three years ago was my last trip to USA and I purchased one from Sim Corner and it worked great till I was coming back to the mainland from Puerto Rico, emailed Sim Corner and they had it working again in 24hrs. Plus I checked what you could get in the states and found Sim Corner to be much cheaper than what was available locally.

[cruisine21]

We were in the US in Oct/Nov last year and purchased an AT&T sim when we arrived. They set it up in the store and it worked well.