Using phone abroad (Europe) - best way?

oldernonethewiser

Using Google maps off line (and now Apple maps) is easy and there are many examples of how to do it on sites such as Youtube.

You can practise using maps off line at home by downloading the appropriate map then sticking the phone in airplane mode and then doing some navigating. 

zagfles

B0bbyEwing said:

zagfles said:
On google maps, download the map for the area you're going to before you leave, and then it doesn't use that much data. I've just been somewhere with expensive roaming and had to be careful about data usage, but in a week google maps only used about 100MB even though I had to go online quite a lot, as some stuff doesn't work offline eg walking directions.

Thanks for your post.

More on the Google Maps though - when you say walking directions don't work offline do you mean the whole thing or just when it's updating you on the fly?

To explain - if I tap in current location for "from" and then set a destination for "to" it will dot me out a route. 

What I then did while we were away this week was NOT tap "go" or whatever it is, I'd just look & be like ok it's a straight line & I can see I need to take a right at <shop> so that's what I'll do - and then the phone goes back in the pocket.
What I didn't do was hit go, it zooms in to the map & directs me like a sat nav.

The way I was using it - is that available offline or do you have to be online for that also?

It might be OK if you set the route while you've got wifi eg at the hotel etc, but if you're out and about with no wifi/data and you decide to go somewhere, it won't do walking directions, ie the "dotting out a route".

You can still use it as a map/satnav, so you can see the map and where you are. Watch out for map expiry, it's got this annoying feature that downloaded maps expire after a time, so make sure they're up to date.

You can test it at home, download the map for your area, switch off mobile data and wifi and try it.

B0bbyEwing

I'll test it out here to be sure so thanks.

Although that makes zero sense to me - it wont do the dotting a route but it will/should still do the sat nav feature. I'd have thought it would've been the other way around if anything. Plus dotting from A-B I would expect to be ok for offline use since you're only dotting from A-B which could be done on a paper map so the fact it needs data to do that (when you've downloaded maps for offline use) makes no sense.

As suggested though, I'm going to test this out to see what can and can't be done.

Moneyqueries675

Is there a website with coverage on for who you can connect to?. I've just been round Cologne area and last month Frankfurt and quite a few times i had no reception

PHK

B0bbyEwing said:

I'll test it out here to be sure so thanks.

Although that makes zero sense to me - it wont do the dotting a route but it will/should still do the sat nav feature. I'd have thought it would've been the other way around if anything. Plus dotting from A-B I would expect to be ok for offline use since you're only dotting from A-B which could be done on a paper map so the fact it needs data to do that (when you've downloaded maps for offline use) makes no sense.

As suggested though, I'm going to test this out to see what can and can't be done.

It's weird isn't it. I just tried it and walking directions *or cycle or public transport*  don't work, it just tells you to connect to the Internet. 

But car does work, which is very odd because that really needs traffic information or it could route you down a blocked road. 

jbrassy

The first thing to do is check whether O2 offer free roaming in Europe. If they do not, it's probably best to get a pay as you go sim just for your holiday. 

You could get a Three or Smarty pay as you go sim which allow you to use up to 12GB per month for free in Europe or ID Mobile or Lebara which allow you to use up to 30GB. 

As an example, you can get a Smarty pay as you go sim with 16GB of data (of which you can use 12GB in Germany) for £8. 

I would look into this next year closer to when you're going on holiday.

Doshwaster

Another alternative if you have a relatively new phone is to use an eSIM. I used one recently on a trip where I didn't have roaming coverage from O2 and it worked flawlessly. One advanatge is that you keep your usual SIM in the phone so it still works for incoming calls and texts (handy for receiving login security codes) on your UK number but the eSIM is used for data - so any calls back to the UK can then be done for free using WhatsApp/Facetime/Skype.