The New Designed-for-Roaming SIM Card from Popit
Please note: we have no association with Popit Mobile or any other SIM provider, and earn nothing if you choose to buy any mobile service mentioned in this blog post. It’s not an advert, it’s just sharing information. We welcome feedback; please add your thoughts to the comments at the end folks.
Popit’s Sole Roaming SIM
Popit have just released a pay-monthly SIM specifically designed for long-term use in the EU, called Sole Roam.
This plan offers unlimited calls and texts, and 100GB a month of data while in Zone 1 (the EU plus a few other countries) for £59 a month. While in the UK you can switch to a cheaper package. At any point (if you head to Morocco or Turkey for example), you can put the SIM on hold for £1.60 a month. In our experience the SIM goes on hold as soon as you request it, not on the renewal date.
There is no limit on how long you can be outside the UK for. If you use all 100GB, the service stops, but you can buy bolt-ons to tide you over (they’re rather expensive – 10GB is £10 – but it beats being completely cut off).
The SIM will use the EE network while in the UK, and roam onto foreign networks while abroad, and supports 5G.
Expensive, But Honest?
Nope, it’s not cheap. You could, for example, get a Tesco Mobile PAYG 100GB SIM and roam Europe with it for £30 a month, half the price.
So why bother looking at the Popit SIM? Simplicity and honesty I guess.
This SIM is intended for people wanting to roam Europe (or in and out) for months, with a UK number, using up to 100GB a month, without worrying about being cut-off.
Tesco, like all providers, tend to bury limitations in their ‘fair use policy’. Without reading these policies (which is an incredibly tedious job) it’s hard to know just how long you can be abroad and how much data you can use.
In Tesco’s case if you’re outside the UK for more than 4 months they reserve the right to halt service. Do they actually enforce this limit? Dunno. Even if they don’t currently enforce it, they presumably could do in future, which is a bit of a pain if you’re currently in Sicily when your SIM stops working.
The Local SIM Option
Another option is to buy a PAYG SIM card abroad. You’ll probably get a better deal this way, take a look at this website for the latest local SIM deals.
Over the years we’ve found the downsides of local SIMs are:
- They have a foreign number
- You may have to visit a shop and speak to a local
- You sometimes need a local address (although a campsite address might suffice)
- Topping them up can be awkward
- They’ll have roaming limits when used outside their home country, so not great for multi-country tours
Several UK-based motorhome travellers have told us Spanish provider Tiekom avoids these issues and has good customer service. They have English-speaking staff, will post PAYG SIMs to the UK, activate them when you need them, and offer 200GB a month of roaming data across the EU for €43.90 a month (around £37 – see the deal on their website here).
In Summary
Buying a SIM card for roaming Europe is a minefield, especially if you plan to be away for several months. The new Popit Sole Roam SIM isn’t cheap, but it should give you confidence that you won’t be cut off or charged more than you expect.
Any thoughts? Have you bought this Popit plan? Have you found a better one? Give us your thoughts in the comments below folks.
Cheers, Jason
Hiya Jason & Ju,
We’ve been sailing round Europe for just over two years and Internet connectivity is a critical service for us.
We are both with O2 who allow seamless use of our allowances within Europe, but probably have a limit on the time you’re allowed to be outside the UK buried in the Ts&Cs.
Early on in our adventure we bought a WiFi dongle from Vodafone. This is used when we are on the boat and is powered by a 12V outlet. The O2 phones work fine when away from the boat, but if we need to do a lot of internet or get a hire car we take the dongle with us. We have used a variety of local PAYG SIMs as we passed along the coast of Portugal, Spain, France and recently Tunisia.
In Europe we gradually settled on Lyca Mobile for two reasons 1) they were competitively priced and 2) local web sites are always available in English.
Since we arrived in Tunisia a month ago we have used Orange, which is one of the two main networks. It is a bit more expensive than Europe. We have just paid 114TND (~€34 or ~£28) for 100GB over 60 days. The web site is in French which would be a serious challenge for me if I wasn’t married to a languages teacher (probably not helpful for 99.9% of readers!)
The critical thing is to top up before you run out of data to avoid a Catch-22. Otherwise you’re forced to head somewhere with WiFi and buy a coffee or beer, while you resolve your excommunication!
Overall I think we’ve paid €6 – €12 for between 30 and 100GB of monthly data around Europe. When we were sailing to both sides of the Bonifacio Straits it was a bit of a pain to have an Italian and French SIM active simultaneously as we bounced back and forth between Corsica and Sardinia.
Of course boat life is slower than van life, so the problem described above makes seamless roaming across borders offered by the Popit SIM more attractive for those in vans.
Hope that’s been helpful … Oh and we have no financial interest in the services discussed apart from being consumers.
Cheers ian & Jess :)
Hi both, great information, many thanks and happy ongoing travels! Cheers, Jay
Hi
This sounds handy, popit, I have found them tedious to deal with they had a 30 day notice period on a 30 Day contract!!
We are considering the RWG Mobile offer 100gb at 30.00 for a month, no limits EU only, in theory you just add the bundle to an existing package even PAYG.
RWG are not the easiest company to deal with but although they do respond.
Hi Jason,
We travel Europe many times and paying Popit seems a very expensive option. I’m with O2 . In the UK I get 50 gB/ month and unlimited calls texts. In Europe it’s free to roam but limited to 25 gB ..price £9.00/ month. No comparison.
Hi Both,
This seems a bad deal!
We travel Europe many times and paying Popit seems a very expensive option. I’m with O2 . In the UK I get 50 gB/ month and unlimited calls texts. In Europe it’s free to roam but limited to 25 gB ..price £9.00/ month. No comparison.
Hi guys,
We are setting off in January on our ‘great adventure’, probably seems normal to some people but our first time touring abroad with car and caravan.
Ahead of this I looked at lots of options and settled on ID Mobile. Unlimited data in the UK and 30Gb a month in the EU. Costing the two of us £16 each per month. Experience is that this should cover our day to day usage along with the satnav connectivity we want. We also tend to use WiFi when we are out and about in restaurants etc.
Fingers crossed that we have enough, without having to visit a local phone store.
Hi Ian,
That should be ample for what you need. If you want to watch any TV just download it before you go. Enjoy your first trip..great adventure. ACSI card is a bonus!
John