Best SIM Card for Canadians traveling to the United States

One of the most common questions that I get as I travel around the world is “How do you stay connected and online when traveling outside of Canada?”. p>

The answer is that

1) I have an unlocked iPhone and

2) in most places that I travel I purchase a local SIM card so that I can stay connected wherever I am.

Buying a local sim card everywhere I go beats jumping from wifi to wifi, from hotel to McDonald’s, Starbucks and/or depending on friends to share a personal hot spot, etc.

Being a Canadian when I travel to the United States I can tell my Canadian service provider and they will give me text, talk and data roaming options. In most cases you will pay an arm and a leg for daily. The longer your trip the worse the fees. Whether your cell phone is with Bell, Rogers, Virgin, Koodo, Fido or one of the other Canadian cell phone service providers, they all have phone plans that you can pay extra for to stay connected when traveling south of the border. However those costs can add up especially when you are using a lot of data like I tend to do.

On average Canadian cell phone companies charge $7 – $10 a day to use your phone with talk, text and data while in the United States. This fee is extra on top of the cell phone plan you already pay for.

In the past year I have found myself  a much more affordable option with Roam Mobility which is made specifically for Canadians traveling to the US.

Without a doubt in my mind they are the best SIM card for Canadians traveling to the United States.

**You do need to have your phone unlocked to use them**

Once your phone is unlocked you can purchase one of their SIM cards on their website or at various stores in Canada. You can buy Roam Mobility sim cards pretty much at every Staples or Petro Canada gas station. To find a location to buy near you check out the list on their site HERE.

Once you have your Roam Mobility sim, activate it online at RoamMobility.com. Choose the plan that best suits you depending on the length of your trip and your needs. They have various options available incase you want data only or only talk and text and no data, or all three talk, text and data.  Then select the time and dates you wish for the sim to be active. As long as you use it at least once within a year then you can keep using it without ever needing to get a new one. Which is convenient so you can always keep the same US phone number.

The Roam Mobility SIM cards give you your own US number and allow you to text, talk and have data while traveling around the US.

You can pay by day, $4.95 for talk, text and data or you can pay by month for longer trips which is perfect for Canadian snowbirds, $64.95 a month. You can switch up what you need and get talk and text only, text and data only, etc. Using Roam you can’t go over on your usage. You only use what you pay for which is nice so you don’t come home to a phone bill of a million dollars. If you run out of data you can just log on to their site and add more.

If you think you are running low on data just text the word “balance” to 7850 and you will be text back right away with how many mbs/gbs you have used and have remaining.

It has even worked for me in the middle of nowhere Lanai, Hawaii on a boat!

If you are worried about whether or not there will be cell coverage where you are traveling to in the US you can also check out their coverage map to see where coverage is available. Two weeks ago I was on the small Hawaiian island of Lanai and my Roam sim even gave me coverage there.

If you have any questions or other suggestions about what is the best sim card for Canadians to use when traveling to the US please let me know!

Thanks to Roam Mobility for sponsoring my large amounts of data when I travel to the US. All opinions and views are my own. Sorry non-Canadians!