iMessage Question for Foreign Travel

[rjruby]

My wife and I will be traveling to Europe next month for two weeks. (Czech Republic, Germany and France).

I would like to use texting via iMessage as the main form of communication with my son and daughter back in the USA during the trip to minimize costs.

We are all iPhone users on AT&T.

I have setup iMessage on my iPhone. Do my son and daughter need to do the same for this to work properly? They have different Apple IDs than mine.

I would appreciate any feedback from other forum members who have done this.

TIA,

Bob

 

[Patrick Smith]

If they have iPhones the its setup automatically. Unless it was turned of then you just have to turn it back on!

 

[mike123abc]

iMessage works fine in Europe if you get the AT&T international data plan. $30 for 120MB is the basic plan up to $120 for 800MB. I went with the 300MB plan for $60. I used Google Maps all the time. Google maps worked great for subway routing in London and Copenhagen, and for driving in Germany, but it does drink a lot of data.

 

[Neutron]

If your phone is unlocked look at the local cell companies for service. I listen to the TWiT.TV netcasts and this topic came up on one of the shows last week. The expert they had said you could get a local cell company SIM card with data a lot cheaper than what AT&T would charge for the international plan.

 

[mike123abc]

If your phone is unlocked look at the local cell companies for service. I listen to the TWiT.TV netcasts and this topic came up on one of the shows last week. The expert they had said you could get a local cell company SIM card with data a lot cheaper than what AT&T would charge for the international plan.

True but you lose your US number (i.e. the new sim gives you a foreign number). I use mine for business so I have to keep my US number active when I am out of the country.

 

[Neutron]

Forward it to a Google Voice number or something similar.

 

[rjruby]

Thanks for all of the feedback.

One question, do I have to add the USA country code (001) to the cell phone numbers for my son and daughter in my contact list?

TIA