Keen to make a call without having to find a red telephone box?
If you’re planning to make calls or use travel apps on your phone while in London, we have some advice for you. Once you hit our green pastures the best thing you can do, which will save you heaps of money in roaming charges, is to buy a SIM card. Now, I have it on good authority that the States haven’t always used the system where you can buy a SIM card separately from the phone itself. So in a nutshell, a SIM holds your telephone number and handily can be transferred between different devices, so you can pop out your existing SIM and replace with a British one for your stay. With iPhones and other types of smartphones, however, this is becoming much easier.
A SIM card up close.
You can purchase a SIM from any supermarket — like Sainsbury’s, Tesco or Waitrose — either at the till or from the tobacco kiosk. Many corner shops and newsagents also sell them. For local calls, say for booking restaurants, taxis, ringing up old friends in the UK then we recommend you buy one with £5 or £10 preloaded on the card. There will be instructions with the SIM on how to top-up, should you need to, but most SIM card providers allow you to top-up online.
Hang on to your SIM and any remaining credit for your next stay, or give it a friend. Easy as pie. Money saved!
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Megan Donnelly is a writer and former Londoner. You can read more about her travels at:
www.postcardstomysister.wordpress.com.
(Image Credit: Telephone boxes by Liftarn and SIM card by Ricardo Moctezuma )
