Cellphone service in Europe?

We're traveling to Italy soon for just a few days, and would like to have phone/data service while we're there. We have Sunrise here in Switzerland. They have a 7-day roaming plan ( https://www.sunrise.ch/en/residentia...tml?country=IT ), but it's CHF 39! Does anyone have a better suggestion? When we go to the US, we often buy a new SIM card with a 1-month plan for about $40. I know, everything's more expensive here. I can deal with that cost if that's the best there is, but I feel like I must be missing something.

Lycamobile.ch - free sim - CHF19 for 30 days’ phone 📞 500 minutes. Data will cost you in Italy 🇮🇹, but not even Lycamobile knows how much. But data can be paid from top up bonuses...

Do you really need a smart phone on holiday? Turn it off and enjoy Italy.

When you go to Italy you can buy a SIM card. I've used TIM (Telecom Italia) before, mainly because the company is everywhere in terms of shops/agencies but also because travelling in rural Italy they had a good network for where I was.

You can visit a shop and you'll need some ID like a passport and it takes 5 minutes and then a couple of hours for the card to be activated and you are good to go.

You can either go yourself or you can prepay online and get a voucher, handy if you do not want to speak Italian in the shop at https://www.tim.it/tim-visitors-en

For Italy I use an Italian www.lycamobile.it card. It's a bit of a hassle to get it registered, but well worth it after that.

Generally for all EU-visits, I find www.hot.at (hot is for HO fer T elecom; Austrian name of Aldi) a very good choice: It's €1.99 to buy the SIM in any Hofer in Austria, the card doesn't need any registration, and at €9.90 you get 2.2GB which can be used all over the EU (or €13.30 for 3.1GB).

All calls from/to EU are charged at 3.9c/minute, and if you surf without booking any package that's charged at 0.9c/MB (computes at ~€9/GB).

Thanks, everyone! These are very useful.

I like the idea of going without the phone for a vacation, but on a short visit, I also like the idea of not getting lost, and I'm totally reliant on Google Maps!

So have I, and it sucks, Wind is much better (cheaper, more GB, etc.)

Internet only is EUR 9/month, pay as you need. Of course, you also need to buy the SIM, something to consider if you only are going to use it once.

I don't bother with phone/SMS cards, just use roaming for that.

Tom