We are about to embark on a trip abroad with our faithful smartphone, but we do not know when we will spend to surf the Internet once we arrive in the foreign country. How to avoid expensive roaming or surf for free when we are abroad "> Free roaming in Europe: limits, conditions and additional costs. Small exception : if we have a Fastweb SIM, we can surf for free roaming (always linked to our mobile offer) in Switzerland, even if the latter does not belong to the European Union (since Fastweb is owned by Swisscom, the Swiss telephone company).
The best Extra-EU tariffs for operators
If instead we have to travel to a foreign country outside the European Union, we will have to sign one of the following offers for abroad, so as to avoid having to pay excessive roaming costs:
- TIM in Viaggio Pass MONDO: at a cost of € 30 every 10 days, we can get 100 minutes, 100 SMS and 500 MB of 4G Internet traffic, in any foreign country with roaming agreements with the operator.
- Vodafone Travel Mondo: at a cost of € 25 every 10 days, we can get 5 GB of 4G Internet, 200 minutes of calls and 10 SMS, for any country with roaming agreements.
- Wind Travel Weekly: for only € 10 every week, we can get 600 MB of Internet, 200 minutes and 200 SMS, to be used in any Extra-EU country with which the operator has roaming agreements.
- Three World Passes: for only € 5 a week, we can get 500 MB of the Internet and 500 minutes of calls for the vast majority of non-EU countries.
Currently the most convenient for short trips is certainly 3, but if we travel a lot, Vodafone is certainly the most balanced, since we can take advantage of a very high amount of data traffic.
We activate these offers one day before departure or the same day (perhaps at the airport or station) in order to avoid costs related to the activation of the offer. To discover other offers, we can also read our Guide Foreign Rates from mobile Wind, TIM, Tre, Vodafone .
How to set up roaming browsing on Android and iOS
Once we arrive in the foreign country (both EU and Extra-EU) we will first have to authorize the data connectivity in roaming, which is basically disabled on all smartphones (just to avoid roaming costs). With our option or offer for abroad activated beforehand, let's see together how to activate roaming on smartphones.
Android
If we have an Android smartphone, open the Settings app, go to the SIM Card or Mobile networks section , tap on Data Roaming and enable the voice, setting any entry, button or indicator to Always or ON .
iPhone
If, on the other hand, we have an iPhone, we open the Settings > Cellular or Cellular Data app and make sure that the Data Roaming option is activated in the Cellular Data Options .
How to set a traffic limit for your smartphone
With active roaming we will have to pay close attention to the consumption of data traffic: both if we travel within the European Union and if we travel abroad with a dedicated offer, we will have a very limited amount of MB or GB. To avoid running into high costs for having finished the data included in the foreign offer, we can set the traffic limit on our smartphones.
Android
To set a traffic limit on Android smartphones, open the Settings app, open the Mobile network or SIM card section, then tap on Set data plan .
Here we can enter the data limit of our operator, the start date (the arrival date in the foreign country) and what the smartphone must do if the threshold is reached (connection block and notification in most cases). Be very conservative: if we have a 500 MB plan, we set a limit to 450 MB in order to compensate for some incorrect calculations. As an alternative to the included monitoring system, we can also use a third party app like this -> My Data Manager.
iPhone
On the iPhone we can set a limit to data traffic by opening the Settings app, touching Mobile or Cellular data and clicking on Use .
We set the data limit and the start date of the count, so as to program the iPhone to use only the data offered by the operator. Again we can use a dedicated app like My Data Manager.
Find free Wi-Fi hotspots
If we want to surf for free abroad and avoid ending the data traffic included, the only way is to take advantage of one of the many free Wi-Fi hotspots present in tourist cities. Let's see together the best apps we can use to immediately find a hotspot nearby:
- Facebook (Android and iOS): the famous social network offers the possibility to search for free Wi-Fi networks nearby, simply open the menu at the top right and use the Find Wi-Fi item .
- osmino Wi-Fi (Android): very useful app to immediately find Wi-Fi hotspots reported by users in all parts of the world.
- WiFi Map (iOS): iPhone app that can display all the hotspots available in the area.
Obviously, in order to make the most of them, it is still worth having some data to be exploited in roaming, so that you can later reach the hotspot and surf for free without limits.
Conclusions
We have seen together all the methods to be able to surf the Internet abroad for free (or almost, at least for non-EU countries). Always on the subject, we also recommend reading our guide on how to surf the Internet for free in Italy and worldwide .If instead we fear for our security and privacy when we connect to a public Wi-Fi network (doubt more than legitimate), we invite you to read our guides on the Best VPNs for Android, free and unlimited iPhones and Surfing safely on public wifi network, free or unsecured .
