Taking your Smartphone Abroad
Traveling with your mobile phone inside the US is pretty painless these days, something you don't even think about -- but that wasn't always true. There was a time that simply driving up the highway to the next city with your old-school cell phone could result in unwelcome additional charges on your wireless phone bill due to roaming -- a term that you rarely even hear today. We're spoiled these days since that's no longer the case.
Not so traveling internationally! Traveling and using your phone abroad is very much a risky business that can easily(!) incur hundreds or possibly even thousands of dollars of expense in a single month. There are steps you can take to avoid such an expense but those steps can be complicated and requires a good understanding of how mobile providers work and how your phone uses data.
International Roaming Hurts
All the major wireless carriers in the US have default roaming agreements with pretty much all the foreign carriers at least to the extent that your phone should actually work, but at outrageously high prices. Costs can exceed $1 per minute of talk time and several hundred dollars per gigabyte of data. This is how the non-savvy traveler could receive a shocking four-figure bill after returning from a few weeks abroad.
The worst thing you can do is not plan at all regarding your foreign mobile communication needs. e.g. Arriving in a foreign country (or being on a cruise ship) and whipping out your phone as though you were still in the US. That's the kind of innocent, naive behavior that gets people in trouble.
Most of the carriers offer a menu of international plans that can reduce your costs but it's still not the best option. Understanding which plan to use requires some knowledge about megabytes and gigabytes, how much data your apps suck down, how to adjust your phone's settings, and how to maximize the plans without doing something "wrong" that will result in a huge bill when you return home.
Airplane Mode
The simplest, hassle-free, most surefire way to save your wallet while traveling internationally is to put your phone in airplane mode just before your plane takes off. Then leave it in airplane mode until you're back in the US. There are ways to do most of what you need while keeping the cellular capability turned off. It's not the most convenient way, but it's a surefire way to avoid international roaming charges.
This conversation will focus on the iPhone since that's what I recommend but the general idea works equally well on Android models.
Switching your iPhone into Airplane Mode initially disables all the radios (wireless components) on your device that can transmit which includes cellular, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. Your phone is totally disconnected from the wireless world around it. Well, except for tap-to-pay. That still works in airplane mode.
The cellular modem is the only radio in your phone that can generate an expense on your mobile bill. The other radios including Wi-Fi aren't associated with your mobile carrier and cannot affect your bill. That means once you land in a foreign country, you can enable the Wi-Fi (but leaving the phone in airplane mode!), connect to any available Wi-Fi network, and use any/all features and apps of your phone that can operate via Wi-Fi. And it won't affect your wireless account.
Well, there is possibility generating a charge on your wireless account if you use "Wi-Fi calling" with the native phone dialer app and call a phone number that's not in the US. Calling to the US should not generate a charge.
What is Wi-Fi Calling?
The three big wireless carriers (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile) and maybe some of the smaller ones offer Wi-Fi calling on iPhones with iOS 8 or later. It's an option that you must enable on your device -- it's not on by default. Wi-Fi calling lets you originate and receive phone calls and text messages over a Wi-Fi connection pretty much anywhere in the world as though you were in the US and at no extra cost per minute. It's a cool feature for keeping in touch with friends and clients back in the US while traveling.
If your phone doesn't offer Wi-Fi calling, then apps like Viber or MagicJack will do the same thing. They aren't free but they are a lot less costly than using the native dialer.
Wi-Fi calling is also pretty cool right here in the US. If you don't have a good cellular signal at home then Wi-Fi calling can fix that!
"When in Rome"
Wi-Fi-only has its practical limitations -- you must be near a Wi-Fi hotspot to use it. If your phone is carrier unlocked and it supports all the right frequencies (later phones should), then you can "be like a local" and buy a local SIM card and install it in your phone. Then you'll have a local number, making your phone behave like a local's phone in whatever country you are visiting.
Or just buy a cheap cell phone in-country and use that for real phone calls. Note, in some countries including Italy, you must present national ID or a passport to buy a SIM card or a device that contains a SIM card. Because anti-terrorism and all that.
Buying an eSIM rather than a physical SIM is also an option. More on that below.
Portable Wi-Fi Hotspot
Another possibility is to purchase or rent a portable hotspot device. You can rent one online (HipPocketWifi is one such provider) before leaving the US or you can buy one locally when you reach the country you are visiting. If your itinerary includes multiple countries then renting a multi-country device before leaving the US is probably the better option.
One advantage to a portable hotspot is you can connect all your devices -- phones, tablets, laptops. etc.
eSIM
The physical SIM card, about the size of your thumbnail, is slowly going away and being replaced with a virtual "eSIM" -- which is nothing more than a cryptographic code that gives your phone permission to access a mobile network. Many newer phones today, including recent iPhone models, accept only eSIMs.
This can make it impossible to buy and use a cheap, local SIM card. With an eSIM-only phone, you're best bet is to use an app that lets you buy an eSIM that includes a certain amount of data, for certain countries or regions, and lasts a certain amount of time like 30 days, 90 days, or even a full year.
With an eSIM in your phone, you can set the eSIM to be the data provider and configure the native phone dialer to use wi-fi calling. The steps to do this are far from uniform. iPhone and Android handle this differently and even different versions of the OS can change the exact steps needed to make this work. Thus it's beyond the scope of this article to provide a step-by-step how-to. But now that you're aware it's possible, you can research how to do it on your particular phone and OS version.
Such eSIM apps include Airalo, Holafly, Gigsky, Nomad, and many more. These apps cost more than a local SIM card but are still much better than your mobile carrier options.
Chatty Apps
Another gotcha with your phone is with all the apps you (probably) have downloaded. Many apps run in the background and can slurp cellular data without you knowing it. Even if you consciously avoid using apps while traveling, they may well still be communicating in the background, eating up mobile data and costing you money.
iCloud is a good example. Configured a certain way, iCloud will automatically upload all the pictures and videos that you shoot to Apple's servers. In the US that's usually not a big deal but if you're traveling abroad that can bruise your mobile bill. To avoid that, iCloud and/or your cellular data connection (if you leave it enabled) must be properly configured to prevent that from happening.
Airplane mode prevents this from happening. Again, it shuts off the cellular radio, eliminating any billable data usage.
If you have wi-fi available, either from a hotel or a hotspot, or via cellular eSIM for that country in your device, then allowing some of these apps, like the camera, to upload images is ok.
Power Hungry
Mapping apps and constant Googling can gobble-up a phone battery in no time, especially when you're outside and have the screen on full brightness. You should have a battery bank to provide supplemental power while away from your lodging so you aren't left with a dead phone before you can recharge that night.
Anker-branded power banks, available in many sizes and capacities on Amazon, has emerged as one of the top bands. Don't cheap out on this. Buy a proven brand, like Anker.
Snatch and Run
How bad would your trip be ruined if someone snatched your unlocked mobile phone out of your hand and ran away (or as a passenger on a motor scooter scoping out victims) while myopically navigating eyes-down along a city sidewalk? Quite a bit, I'd say. Catastrophic, even?
Some newer Android phones have an anti-snatch feature that detects the tell tale patterns of motion when a phone is snatched from your hands -- and then immediately locks it. That's great and wonderful -- your data is protected. But you still lost a phone so your new immediate problem remains.
There exists today phone cases that have a built-in lanyard so the phone can hang around your neck or be secured to your wrist. A bad guy trying to snatch a phone from your hand probably won't expect that, especially if the lanyard is on your wrist, and will likely lose their grip when the lanyard tightens up.
A lanyard can even offer a visual deterrence. Why target you with that trickier-to-steal phone than another nearby tourist who isn't using a lanyard?
You can also buy lanyard attachments for existing phone cases. Check on Amazon -- there's a bunch of them. Use it while traveling and then remove it, if you want, after arriving back home.
You know what they say about an ounce of prevention? This is it.
Your Rights at Border Crossings
There's been a lot of news coverage lately at the time of this writing (June 2025) regarding device searches, seizures, and foreigners being denied entry into the US. Fact is, most countries offer few civil protections at the border. It's not just the US.
Border agents in most countries need little to no probable cause to search your devices. If you refuse, your devices will almost certainly be seized and searched anyway, and you may even be detained -- if only temporarily.
You may not like it and it may injure your sense of what rights you should defend, but cooperating is by far the easiest. International travel is already a chore with all its attendant hassles. You do not want to manufacture new hassles by being uncooperative with border agents. This is not the hill to die on.
The likelihood of being selected for additional scrutiny is pretty slim. But if you have reason to believe that a search of your device(s) might uncover things you'd rather not have exposed then you are best advised to leave those devices at home.
Savvy travelers that don't want to risk exposing things on their device(s) mitigate that risk by using a dedicated device just for travel. That dedicated device should only have key apps installed that are needed for traveling: Airline apps, mapping apps, lots of games, some e-books, maybe some movies and TV shows. Leave out all social media, secure messaging apps, and passwords except for those needed for the apps you do include. The idea is for your phone to be "boring" -- nothing that will pique the attention of border control agents.
And let me be clear: This isn't about hiding criminal activity. It's about protecting personal information. Border agents generally have the capability to clone your device for later examination, long after you and your phone have left. Even if you have "nothing to hide", do you really want all your passwords, credentials, photos, email, and everything else in your phone on some government server where it could very well be compromised? I think not.
Awareness
If I sound alarmist here it's because I'm trying to. Several of my clients, especially first-time foreign travelers, have been gut-punched with huge mobile carrier bills after returning from abroad. They simply weren't aware that traveling with a smartphone could be so costly. Most people are vaguely aware that traveling abroad with a phone is "different" somehow, but many have no idea how, why, or what to do about it.
It's beyond the scope of this article to tutor step-by-step on what to do. There are far too many variables that make each case a bit different which means the best approach to take differs. You should contact a geek-savvy friend, call your wireless provider, or use Google to learn more.
Like most of my articles, this one is intended to boost awareness -- making folks aware they must make appropriate plans for how to use a phone while traveling abroad.
