Phone and Maps Travel Tips

Helpful Hints

  

If you travel and take your phone, do the research before you leave.  I wanted to get a T-mobile SIM card for my phone before I left, but turned out the T-mobile SIM wouldn't work in my Verizon phone.  Verizon and Sprint use different technologies for their mobile networks and they aren't used in other countries.  

Verizon has almost nothing for you outside of the USA, don't waste your time trying to work that out unless your trip is very short and you want to pay extra for something you may not need to use at all. Although I didn't spend much time on other carrier options, I read AT&T has decent out of country plans now. T-mobile is known widely as having the best and cheapest options.   

Airplane mode, turn it on immediately when you arrive and keep it on the whole time.  You won't have any issues with roaming charges and your smart phone will still work fine as a mobile computer when you have wifi.  If you don't suspend you USA service, your text messaging will work over wifi.    

When I knew I was going to get to Lisbon a day late, I was able to communicate with my airbnb host via airbnb and whatsapp.  Handy to ask your airbnb host to find you on whatsapp.  Once I landed in Lisbon, I could still do this anywhere I had a decent wifi connection.

Some free wifi connections are wide open and very slow.  My Verizon phone won't connect to some of them at all due to the security software on the phone which can't be disabled.  Thankfully, that didn't goof me up.  

If you don't have whatsapp, it's great.  Better and more widely used than the others.  I've spoken to a couple folks in USA and it sounds better than most conversations I had with them in the USA.  As it is VOIP, it does skip and/or drop on occasion but the clarity of the sound is great.  

Still looking for a phone replacement for my old Samsung Note4, but haven't made a decision as yet.  So many options.  I was big on the OnePlus 5T but now it's had a few problems.  I may opt for another Samsung.  Other than crap battery life, all the Samsungs I've had have been great.  The Note8 is due to be released on my birthday.  It may have to be my birthday present.  

LAST BUT NOT LEAST!!!  The best thing I've discovered so far about having a smart phone with me that is no longer a phone....

GOOGLE OFFLINE MAPS

This is spectacular.  Without it, I would have been lost in Lisbon and in Figueira.  All you have to do is pick the area you're going to be in on Google Maps and request the Offine version while you have a wifi connection.  It won't give you directions when you're not on wifi (unless you have mobile data turned on where you risk roaming unless you have international plan/service), but it works perfectly.  The Alfama district in Lisbon is pretty tricky, but with the GPS feature it will know where you are unless it can't ping the satellite.  You see a little blue dot where you are and you can zoom the map and see a great level of detail.  While I love a good paper map, this is even better.  Even more amazing that it works without wifi or mobile connection.  

Here's an example of how it looks:

 When you're in Google Maps, go to the menu bar and select Offline Maps, it lets you choose the area you want.  Even though it looks like it will be too big of an area, you can zoom down to loads of details.  Download it to your mobile phone and it'll be there when you don't have a connection.  They expire and disappear after a couple weeks.  Too cool!  

zoomed in to see more detail 

Happy travels!