The iPhone Post

In April, my mom and I were walking along a nature trail in Florida. It was my spring break and I'd only recently discovered I'd be going abroad. As with the rest of the last six months, England was the only thing on my mind. I was taking pictures of the pretty Florida woods, when I thought of my phone and asked, "when I'm in Europe... can I get an iPhone?" I would need a phone to use there and my contract was ready for an upgrade. Why not the phone I'd been dying for since 2007?

"Sure," said my mom, who made me get a Droid ten days before they announced that Verizon would begin carrying iPhones. It was a small victory.

Thirty minutes later, while walking along the beach, I dropped and completely shattered my phone. We bought my iPhone an hour later. My mom still thinks it was a conspiracy.

Phones are pretty important, (she says without an ounce of sarcasm) so I figured a blog on how I got my phone ready for international travel would be useful. Especially since most of the information on using an American, locked iPhone internationally  is carefully hidden.

When we were buying my iPhone, we specifically made sure it was capable of international travel. That means that we needed the iPhone 4s, a "world phone," instead of any previous version of the iPhone, all of which are not capable of switching from American carriers to international carriers for reasons I personally can't explain.

We didn't really worry about anything else until a few weeks ago when my mom and I started trying to figure out the specifics of what in the world we're doing with my phone when I'm in Europe for ten months. Verizon has an international plan you can add if you'd like to pay a bajillion dollars to use your iPhone as a phone abroad. That is not a thing that was going to happen. Instead, I'm going to suspend my Verizon contract, unlock my phone, and get a British phone provider.

How the hell do you do that? I'll tell you how:

If you've had Verizon service for over 60 days, you can call them at 1-800-711-8300 and tell them that you're travelling abroad (or else they won't do it) and need your phone unlocked. Then, they'll unlock your phone and give you a code so that your phone will work with another carrier's SIM card.

Simple, right?

Er....

My mom and I went to four different Verizon stores to find out exactly how to do this and the employees kept telling us it was impossible. They said we had to use Verizon's international plan or else my phone wouldn't work abroad. One of the employees told me I'd need to hire someone to jailbreak my phone to unlock it, which I could do if I wanted to void my contract and all warranties and, with my luck, completely screw my phone up.

None of this phased me. In the iPhone 4s guide, Apple says specifically that Verizon will unlock your phone for you if you're travelling abroad, so we knew we could do it, we just wanted to hear it from Verizon. Finally, we found an employee who had read all of the fine print. He told us we could suspend our contract, get my phone unlocked by Verizon, and use a third party carrier when I was away. He gave us the number to call and we were merrily on our way.

The information isn't exactly freely given. Apparently, most Verizon employees don't even know about it,* so if you want to go to the Verizon store and talk to them about going abroad with your phone, chances are you're going to need to do a bit of convincing. If they don't believe you, have them look it up on the computer. It will come up and they will apologize profusely for making your mother so angry.

All that's left is to get a SIM card from a provider from whichever country you're going to. With the SIM card, you'll get a new number and a new plan and it will be as if it's an entirely new phone. You can get an international plan with your new provider, or you can download a Skype app or Vonage app so you can call your family and friends back in the U.S. cheaply or even for free.

I'm looking at getting Orange, which seems to be a pretty popular provider in the U.K. I can get a pay-as-you-go plan or a year-long plan. I'm probably going to do this once I get to the U.K. though, and go to one of their stores and spend an hour asking a thousand questions to make sure I'm doing everything right. I'll use Verizon's stupid international plan for the first few days I'm in England at least.

Extra information:

Apple has neat little SIM card popper-outers. They come with unlocked iPhones, but not iPhones with plans. If you ask for one nicely, they'll give one to you so that you can switch out your SIM cards with ease whenever you want.

Also, Apple has a world travel adapter kit. It comes with plugs and chargers for nearly every country so you won't have to use those horrible, bulky adapters. It's about $40 and comes with a new charger, cable and exchangeable plug for all of the countries, even America, so you can use it when you come back home. It's completely worth it, especially if you have multiple apple products/appliances with usb chargers.

So that's what I did today. I also bought a mug SHAPED LIKE A WITCH'S CAULDRON. It's only the coolest thing ever. Being able to use my phone in the U.K. is pretty cool too.

I hope that helped you if you're planning on using your iPhone abroad. If you don't specifically have the Verizon iPhone 4s, or if you don't have an iPhone at all, I can give you some general advice.

Do your research.

Figure out if your phone is a world phone. Talk to your phone carrier and anyone else who might know about your phone. Figure out what carriers people use wherever you're going. Maybe it'll work out well, maybe it won't, but be sure your answers are the right ones.There are loads of options for cell phones when you go abroad. Figure out what you want to use yours for, when you think you'll need it most, and get the phone/plan/carrier that will help you do that.

23 days left.


*Apple employees know everything, though. If you have any questions about using your phone abroad go to both your provider and carrier. Your carrier will know everything about the plans they have and how to deal with your current contract, but Apple will know everything about your specific phone and what you're allowed to do with that.