Phone Data whilst travelling various countries in South America

BucketsJackson on 24/03/2016 - 14:21
Last edited 24/03/2016 - 16:13

Hi guys,

My wife and I are travelling South America for 7 weeks from Mid May-July this year.

Looking at mobile phone options, it's obviously very tricky as we are navigating through countries instead of states. Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil. I don't need a lot of anything, but obviously being able to access GPS and the internet for booking things, researching restaurants etc etc is important.

Does anyone have experience, guidance or answers on how they have handled this? I'm with Telstra, so roaming is not an option (if I was Voda, I would probably swallow the $5 per day fee for convenience.)

Any info is much appreciated.

Travel

Comments

  • [Deactivated] on 24/03/2016 - 14:27

    Question:

    Does anyone have experience, guidance or answers on how they have handled this?

    Answer:

    if I was Voda, I would probably swallow the $5 per day fee for convenience

    Hope this helps.

    • BucketsJackson on 24/03/2016 - 14:54

      I'm kinda confused on your response other than to say I'm not with Vodafone and there $5 roaming per day and after some quick research, doesn't extend to all countries I have listed!

      • ESEMCE on 24/03/2016 - 16:05

        You haven't listed any countries at all!?

        • BucketsJackson on 24/03/2016 - 16:12
          +1

          Wow, I thought I did… I'm an idiot!

        • ESEMCE on 24/03/2016 - 16:16

          @BucketsJackson:
          And you can sign up with Voda if that works out to be your best option.

  • Marcsie on 24/03/2016 - 14:55

    Just use free Wi-Fi in the hotels that you stay,problem solved :)

    • BucketsJackson on 24/03/2016 - 15:31

      Yeah, I'm down with that but I'm not going to be spending a lot of time in the hotels and I just feel much more comfortable having access to GPS etc while I'm out, particularly in countries that don't have English as there native tongue.

      • ESEMCE on 24/03/2016 - 16:04
        +2

        Get a proper GPS App then..
        Nokia HERE Maps is free and very good.
        Download the maps on WiFi here and you won't need data for maps while you're away.

  • ESEMCE on 24/03/2016 - 16:06
    +1

    Travel SIM's might offer a solution, but it'll be much cheaper to buy SIM's locally if you're going to use a lot of data..

  • Bredo on 24/03/2016 - 16:24

    I will suggest for maps, use Maps.me app (you can download for free in the app store) and it uses open source maps which are very complete and you can download all the countries you need for free so you don't need data at all: http://maps.me/en/home
    For the language thing, just download spanish language (and if you go to Brazil, also download Portuguese) from your google translate app so you can use it offline: https://support.google.com/translate/answer/6142473?hl=en

    Hope that helps :)

  • toniyellow on 24/03/2016 - 18:24
    +1

    +1 for HERE maps and google translate

    Tripadvisor app can download content for whole cities to read offline.
    Can get an ereader app and load up guidebook/s

    I've just stocked up on offline content and used wifi

  • BucketsJackson on 04/04/2016 - 12:54

    Thanks all for the pieces of advice. The idea of downloading offline content for tripadvisor is pretty great.

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