5 weeks in Italy Spain & France
 

Hi,

We are travelling from Australia on a 5 week holiday to Europe soon and are trying to find a cheap but workable solution for Voice and Data (some email and small amount of browsing) whilst away. Our first stop is Rome, travelling through Italy then through Spain (initially Barcelona) then France (Paris only) .

We currently have 2 Telstra (Australian) SIMS and have presumed international roaming will be more expensive that using prepaid in Europe, but who knows?. Does anyone know of a good solution for these countries using only prepaid 2 SIMs (wife and I) for all of our trip or buying 2 individual SIMS for each country and whether buying a prepaid in the country of use is the best way to go.

Handsets are not really an issue as we have some tri and quad band 3G GSM/UMTS mobiles and smart phones.

Any information appreciated.

I tihnk Wind (in Italy) and Yoigo (in Spain) are the best solution.
The best tariff of Wind (for short calls) is Wind Super Senza Scatto--> 0,17 euro/minute without set-up fee (0,12 euro/sms). Sim card costs 10 euro (with 5 euro in). http://www.wind.it/it/tariffe/index.phtml?sHp2=4066
Here---> http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/spagna/yoigo.html Yoigo tariffs

I might be inclined to suggest an international roaming SIM for voice and taking a laptop with a good data card and a high-gain external antenna; maybe a Boingo account too. There are good options for voice roaming but I don't know of any good (inexpensive) options for data roaming.