Best sim for Europe

[Fidge]

I looked this up in the questions section but it seems the answers are from last year. We're off to France and Spain in April and wondered what is the latest people would suggest. I used Poppit last year but their data is now is reduced to 25g. Shame because they were really good. I don't have a router, just my phone, I would like as much data as possible.

 

[Kups]

Long story short.
Best deals are local sims.
Nothing really difficult in buying and installing one.
I'm on Lobster (Spain) 300Gb for 24.99 euros. 28 day contract.
You do need a VPN - Express is £12 per month also using that now.
Ditch Popit.

 

[Neil S]

Tesco mobiles 1 month rolling contract plus add the rocket pack = £30 gives you 100gb with no roaming restrictions.
We’re on our second month in Spain and it’s working well for streaming TV and because it’s a U.K. sim you don’t need a VPN

 

[Markman]

Tesco mobiles 1 month rolling contract plus add the rocket pack = £30 gives you 100gb with no roaming restrictions.
We’re on our second month in Spain and it’s working well for streaming TV and because it’s a U.K. sim you don’t need a VPN

Interesting. Good for you. Your UK SIM will normally simply be logging in to a local mobile network (and they will be charging your UK supplier for the privilege) so I'm surprised you can access the BBC, etc without a VPN, I'm used to seeing the message "this is not available in your country" until I switch on my VPN (and sometimes have to reboot to clear all local indicators cached somewhere in the laptop/tablet/phone).

 

[Land Yachties]

Interesting. Good for you. Your UK SIM will normally simply be logging in to a local mobile network (and they will be charging your UK supplier for the privilege) so I'm surprised you can access the BBC, etc without a VPN, I'm used to seeing the message "this is not available in your country" until I switch on my VPN (and sometimes have to reboot to clear all local indicators cached somewhere in the laptop/tablet/phone).

We are also using a Tesco unlimited sim in Spain. No issues watching BBC iPlayer or Netfix. We don't use a VPN

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[Neil S]

Interesting. Good for you. Your UK SIM will normally simply be logging in to a local mobile network (and they will be charging your UK supplier for the privilege) so I'm surprised you can access the BBC, etc without a VPN, I'm used to seeing the message "this is not available in your country" until I switch on my VPN (and sometimes have to reboot to clear all local indicators cached somewhere in the laptop/tablet/phone).

Previously used POPIT mobile , again no VPN ever used for live U.K. television.
We spent 3 months in Spain last winter and used our quota of 100gb up each month on evening viewing

 

[CueBall]

It's the "Fair Use Policy" bit that can limit the usage abroad vs what you get monthly in the UK. Most are limited to somewhere between 12-25Gb abroad regardless of how large your allowance might be in the UK. After a bit of research I opted for Tesco Mobile on a 12 month contract, £20 = 100Gb per month with the same being available to use in Europe. It now seems to be one of the only UK providers that still allows this (up until at least 2026 they say). They do have a fair use policy but it's worded more around you being mainly UK based and that they will monitor usage if you spend more than 4-6 weeks abroad at a time, but won't imply any restrictions for another 4 weeks after that, so you can do around 2 months abroad without any issues (which was fine for us).

We originally had IQ Go from IQ Mobile but they too introduced caps on usage abroad. They do have a top-up option that has no fair usage abroad, but they want £75 for 100Gb's for a month !