Best SIMs for Roaming Internet in Europe 2019
Getting fast mobile Internet while travelling across Europe has never been easier, faster or cheaper than it is in 2019. These are the UK SIM cards we’re using on our travels this year:
- Our primary SIM card: Vodafone Data-Only 30 Day Contract 15GB SIM for £20 a month (available here) – higher data packages are available but we know how much we’ll use and 15GB will be enough for us.
- Our back-up SIM card: Three Internet with Legs, 12GB SIM valid for 12 months from the point of activation, approx £35 (available here)
Our 2019 Motorhome Internet System
The system we’re using for Internet access in our motorhome this year consists of:
- An unlocked Huawei E5577 personal ‘MiFi’ 4G device. This creates a private WiFi network inside and for a short distance outside the van. It’s connected to the van’s 12V system, so is always charged.
- A roof-mounted low profile 4G antenna. This helps boost speed, as it’s outside the metal shell of the van.
- The Vodafone data SIM card noted above. This is fast, and cost-effective.
The system is available here from the experts at motorhomewifi.com, who we’re proud to say sponsor this blog. We opted to fit the roof-mounted antenna ourselves, as shown in this video:
Why This System?
These are the reasons we’re using this system:
- It’s reliable. We’ve used it for over three years roaming a continent and, unless we’re in a seriously remote location, it always works.
- It’s fast. I just tested the system here in France with the Vodafone SIM and it’s on a 4G network pulling down data at 50Mbps, and uploading at 40Mbps (more tests show it is typically at least 10Mbps up and down). For comparison our DSL WiFi at home is roughly 12Mbps down and 4Mbps up on a good day.
- It’s simple. We put the SIM in the MiFi and off we go. It works seamlessly across most international borders.
- It’s cost-effective. To get this kind of connectivity you used to have to buy a satellite Internet system for £3000. Not any more.
- It’s always-on. No need to pull out a WiFi antenna and start hunting about. No need to pop a phone or MiFi on the roof. It’s on when we drive and as soon as we stop.
- Tethering is supported: we can pop these SIMs into a MiFi and share the Internet connection with up to ten devices. We use 1pmobile.com SIMs in our phones but don’t usually have data turned on, so we only have Internet in the van unless we take the MiFi with us. That works for us.
Why Vodafone and Three?
Why these particular SIM deals? Good question. As far as we know, they’re the best ones currently available for roaming without having to sign up to a year contract. There are a huge range of options though, and to be honest if you really want to you’ll be able to get better deals by mixing up these UK SIMs with ones bought locally in some countries. Our view is it’s no longer worth bothering unless you’ll be in a particular country for months. If you want a ton of data you can get 50GB at 4G speeds for £30 a month from Vodafone which works without surcharge in 48 countries (but see below). Unless you’re a seriously heavy user, that’s **almost** unlimited data across most of Europe for £360 a year, not a bad deal.
We have both Vodafone and Three SIMs for this reason: in case something goes wrong with the Vodafone SIM. That’s all. The Three SIM is 3G only (not 4G), will only roam onto certain networks, and is more expensive per GB than Vodafone. On the plus side, if you’re a low data user and cost is important, you can get 1GB a month for only £35 a year.
Restrictions on Time Abroad
As far as I know all UK-based SIMs have restrictions on how long they can be used abroad:
- Three explicitly state the SIMs can be used for 60 days outside the UK. Anecdotal evidence suggests this is sporadically enforced (Three threatened to cut off one of our SIMs after several months outside the UK but never did). An easy way around it is to simply buy multiple Internet with Legs SIMs, and swap them out after two months. These SIMs aren’t registered to you as an individual, and aren’t associated with a contract, and this is the method we’ve used to avoid this restriction. Six of the 12GB SIMs mentioned above would cost £210, giving you 6GB of data a month for a full year’s roaming.
- Vodafone state “Use of our services while in our Europe Zone (excluding the UK), Roam-free or Roam-further destinations is intended for temporary, periodic travel such as holidays and short breaks.” So the restriction is far more vague. In this case anecdotal evidence suggests the time restriction is not currently enforced, and people have used this SIM abroad for a full 12 months without being cut off. From our experience the Vodafone SIM charges start as soon as the SIM is shipped, unlike the Three SIMs which are dormant until first used. This makes it more expensive to have multiple Vodafone SIMs.
Another method of avoiding time restrictions abroad is to buy SIM cards locally, in whichever country you happen to be in. We’ve done this a fair bit over the years, and you can get some very good deals this way. Websites like the Prepaid Data SIM Card Wiki are helpful for understanding the latest deals, where to buy the SIMs and how to top them up. The main downside of buying local SIMs is the potential hassle in using them, especially with language barriers if you don’t speak the local lingo.
Over-Use Surcharges
In our experience, the Three SIMs simply stop working once you’ve used all of the data. Your web browsing gets redirected to a Three web page asking you to buy an additional top-up and that’s it. The SIM isn’t associated with your bank account or credit card, so Three can’t automatically apply any surcharge.
However, we’ve been advised that Vodafone will potentially apply a surcharge if you go over the monthly allowance, with one friend reporting getting a bill for £186 after going over the 50GB per month allowance. We’ve used the My Vodafone website (Account Settings > Spend Manager) to set a spend limit of £0, which should prevent us using more than the 15GB a month we’ve paid for.
Tracking Data Use
It’s VERY easy to use your data up much more quickly than you might imagine. We strongly recommend setting up a system which lets you quickly see how much data you’ve used. This is what we do:
- Neither of our phones has mobile data enabled. Instead we only have WiFi enabled, and only access the Internet through our MiFi.
- We’ve set the MiFi up so it knows the monthly data allowance we have, and which day the allowance starts.
- We then look at the front of our MiFi each day which shows the total data used so far each month.
A few tips for constraining how much data you’re using:
- Video streaming uses mucho data. If you plan to stream UK TV (for example) get a good understanding of how much data you’re using, it could easily be as much as 1GB an hour, although on some systems you can drop the video quality to get it down to maybe 300MB an hour.
- If you’re using Windows laptops, set the MiFi network to be ‘metered’, to prevent Windows downloading updates and so on.
- We have Android phones, and have turned off app updates in the Play Store, instead we manually update them when on a WiFi connection in a cafe or at a campsite.
Your Thoughts?
Are you roaming Europe with a different SIM card? If you know of better deals, pop the details in the comments (ideally with a link to where you can obtain the SIM from). Thanks, Jay
Whenever we travel to a different country, we obtain a new prepaid SIM card for that particular country. This is the best website with which to explore your options… http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.com/wiki/Prepaid_SIM_with_data
Hi guys, we’ve done a lot of that too, but these days UK SIMs roam easily across much of Europe with not much price difference with local SIMs. This also means no faffing about with data top-ups in Polish, sitting for 3 hours on the floor of an Orange shop when your SIM fails or being bewildered in Sicily when all your data is inexplicably gone after two days (we were supposed to send a text message from the SIM but no-one explained that). Local SIMs definitely have their place, but in most circumstances a UK SIM does the job well with the minimum of fuss. Cheers, hope Mexico is warmer than northern France! Jay
Perhaps so, but what if you are not going to Europe from the UK…?
Yes, Mexico is very comfortable… hope you expand your horizons some day. :-)
Ah! You have me there! I’m writing from a very UK centric perspective. I can’t help it. Must spend longer outside the UK! Cheers, Jay
Vodaphone Global roaming plus is the answer to the above! Just take your MiFi device with you and you can stream to your hearts content, especially in Mexico!
Thanks for this info. We use the 3 data sim with the huwaei thing but when ordering 2 24gb data cards this time i read a review on amazon that the 24gb is restricted to 12gb if outside the uk under their fair usage policy. I don’t know if thats correct but when we left the uk in sept we burned thru a 24gb card in less than a month and we don’t use it for video streaming or downloading so i am now looking at different options. I’ll check out vodaphone. Happy travels Jane
Mmm, I have been checking giffgaff and vodaphone packages and both seem to be restricted to 60 days use in a four month period. It seems that the payg data/minutes/texts are designed for people that go on holiday. Giffgaff have cottoned on to me being out of the uk for most of the year now so i can’t buy a goodybag anymore. When reading the full t&c’s for vodaphone they say the same thing. It took giffgaff a loong time to cut me off but i only make a few texts and calls a month but i am now getting into the 21st century and buying a smart phone so looking at all the options. I contacted giffgaff and they suggested the buying of a sim in the country we are visiting but as you know its a drag so hope to find a better solution. ☺
Hi Jane. As far as I know all suppliers have limitations in their terms on length of time their SIMs can be used abroad. Vodafone have a reputation for not cutting people off, but that’s not to say they won’t of course. One option is to buy multiple Three PAYG 12 month Internet with Legs SIMs and swap them out every 2 or 3 months. We’ve done that in the past with the SIMs in a MiFi. It doesn’t work as well for phones as the number changes, so we use 1pmobile.com SIMs in our phones with data switched off, and the Vodafone or Three SIM in our MiFi. In some countries buying a local SIM is easy and cheap, from packets in supermarkets or from the post office for example, so if we’re staying a few weeks in one country we sometimes do that too. Overall Internet SIMs are easier to get and roam with at relatively low cost than ever before, but it can still be a wee challenge! Cheers, good luck, Jay
Hi Jay, thanks for your blog. We’re in Bertie our 94 B544 ‘Dave’ in Murcia region of Spain, 4 months into a 7 month trip of Europe. Vodafone told us they’d cut us off if we used their 50GB, £30 p/m 12 month SIM in Europe for 2 months in one trip. So we got a 24 month 3 SIM & so far touch wood they haven’t warned they’ll surcharge us… Do you know if Vodafone time limit you when roaming on your 30 day plan?
Thanks
We were using GiffGaff (£20 per month for 20gb on a goodybag) and got blocked after 63 days. We had a spare GiffGaff card which we activated abroad but they cut that off very quickly (they should at least be activated in the UK first). We also have a bunch of Three PAYG cards which we now activate as required.
Regarding Three – since November 2018, the data roaming limit has been increased from 12gb to 15gb per month. If you buy a package for 12gb at £20 and then top up within the month, they will only allow a further 3gb of that top up to be used until the month has passed. Disadvantage is they they are only 3G.
It seems the Vodafone 30 day contract may be the best option. A girl in the Vodafone shop explained the 60 day rule but said her brother had been using his in Europe for more than a year without being switched off.
Best local data SIM cards are in Portugal. €15 for 30GB for 15 days with MEO. Equivalent to 60GB per month for €30 with lightning fast 4G. (NOS offer the same price for unlimited data but many living in Portugal are now using these for TV streaming, so network can get choked and speeds drop). Bought off the shelf with no registration necessary, it is much easier to just buy a new SIM after 15 days (or a few at once as they only start when activated in a device) rather than trying to mess around with top-ups.
Great info, thanks Alan and Michelle. Jay
Hi.
I live in NZ and I’m the owner of a mifi – Huawei E5332 – bought from a UK firm in Feb 2014, and used for 4 months whilst on a campervan trip around Europe. It worked pretty well too.
We are now planning another Europe holiday this year, 6 weeks campervanning during May-July.
The sim from 4 years ago will no longer work and the company recommends I buy a 24Gb sim (from them for 50GBP) which “should” work in the 3G mifi; it can’t be topped up but we’d have to buy a new one.
Is that a reasonable way to go, do you think, or are there any other options I hadn’t considered??
Is 24Gb enough – for FB, emails, blogging (not streaming movies or sport)??
Regards Brian
Hi Brian. 24GB should be fine for 6 weeks with no video streaming. As you’ll not be wanting a contract, and I’m guessing your device could be network-locked, the £50 deal sounds fine to me. Cheers, happy travels, Jay
Try knowroaming SIM and save 85% on roaming bills
Thanks Melisa. Knowroaming looks like a US Telco? Cheers, Jay