If travelling abroad should I get a sim card?
Aloha, I have been meaning to write about sim cards and why they are important and more than just “handy” to use. Sim cards are the the little tiny pieces of plastic that fit in your phone as an integrated chip that has your phone number, id # and other links for communication. Your phone will only work the way it does because it has your sim card in it. When you travel to different countries that requires a sim card so that you can do all those things you take for granted at home.
You need a sim card to text and make phone calls. Now since being a concierge for a couple of years and now a tour guide on Kauai I have seen the value of sim cards in action. As a concierge I would book people for an excursion and the vendors request a phone number or at the least an email. Now if everything goes alright all is good BUT when it does go wrong it can go seriously wrong. For instance if there is bad weather and the vendor needs to tell you a change of plans you need to make sure your email notification is on and working. What if you are on your way and you are in a no reception area( common on Kauai)? You have possibly missed your activity and made an unnecessary for nothing. Bummer, you’re on vacation and time is precious not to mention you just wasted an activity monies since most vendors do not allow non communication as an excuse to miss your activity. Just the other day I was touring some folk from Australia and she had no sim card and we had a discussion and I opined that not getting a sim card,especially for US, is penny wise and pound foolish because it is the cost as reason most given for not getting one. She said it was expensive and I dropped the subject at that. Locally a sim card is about $50 at the Walmart, although I was told it is cheaper at AT&T in this particular case. When our tour was over I ask if they got everything out of the car as I always do and they said yes and off they went back to their cruise ship. About 30 minutes later I got a phone call from a local phone and it was my Australian lady quite frantically calling me about her glasses she left in the car. Fortunately I was not too far away and was able to go back. But, she took so long to call me because she had to find someones phone to borrow!! She borrowed some taxi driver’s phone who was nice enough to let her use it. Now, I was able to go back and it was only glasses. Not that glasses aren’t valuable but I could have been a long ways away and it could have been a wallet or something very valuable. When you need a phone you need a phone. Don’t leave home without it! If you have anything to add please reach me at my website www.kauaitourguy.com and follow me on IG kauaitourguy.com