I'm from the United States and am planning a vacation to

I dont know about American sims but the an EU law has just come into effect that prohibits international charges between EU countries. So if you do buy one in say, England, you wont be charged massive rates if you use it in Italy.

I don't really know alot about American sims.

>>1219510
Although make sure you check that they dont try to squees it out of you. I went to Berlin the other month and my provider tried to charge me international rates (fucking EE!)

>>1219506
Go by your providers store and ask, most will generally let you know if you need to add a plan on to avoid huge roaming fees and if your phone will work.

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>>1219506
Make sure your phone is unlocked. You can request a code from AT&T, if that phone is not under contract or anything. Or you can buy an unlock code from a third party for about $30.

Once your phone us unlocked any sims will work in it.

If you don't want to go through the hassle of swapping sims, AT&T does have a travel plan with unlimited texts, and 200MB of data.

If you have another old phone, a lot of places have data only prepaid sims. My last travel I used an old phone as wifi hot spot for GPS, for me and the WiFi and was able to still make wifi calls from my phone and still recieve texts. Not sure if the S5 has wifi calling.

Wifi calling icon in the pic

>>1219506

Brit here, you don't have to use a different SIM in every country, that's literally absurd

Clearly you have never travelled in your life

Over here, going to another country with your phone is called "roaming", and your service provider will show their roaming charges on their website

So do that, find out the roaming charges of your provider

I don't know what roaming charges are like for US operators, maybe they're a lot, or maybe they're exactly the same as it would be if you bought a SIM in Europe (which is what I suspect, but I don't know), so yeah just google it and find out

>>1219601
Some providers like T-mobile have a plan for overseas, you pay 10/mo per month you are over in country/region X and they just transfer your plan.

If you don't check prior to going about coverage and stuff, good luck with that phone bill

>>1219606
I think T-Mobile is the only one that simple, because they are the American arm of a European provider.

The big three (ATT, Verizon, Sprint) roaming charges are astronomical, and a proper plan is over a $100/minimum.

Prepaid sims are cheap

>>1219506
Also make sure to check the bands, different countries operate 3G and LTE on different bands. So just to make sure there is a wiki page with all the tele companies of all countries detailing the bands they operate on.

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>>1219601
>Clearly you have never travelled in your life

Do not be a butt hole. I am not OP, and have traveled a great deal, with an old phone that was set up as an international phone back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. When it dies, I will have to learn about all this shit because I don't know dick about modern phones, not because I have not traveled,

Further, some people on here will not have traveled much or at all -- they come ehre to learn what they don't know. Being an ass hat to them is not necessary.

By the way, I've had some wonderful times in Britlandia over the years, and hope to get back there in the future. Pic from BVI tangentially related.

Op here. Thanks everyone for your answers. Very very helpful!

If need your phone unlocked i'm at your service OP