Surfing, texting and calls as well as streaming music, movies and podcasts can be expensive stories for the traveller. Few want to be greeted by a sky-high phone bill the first thing they do when they get home from vacation.
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Turn off or keep mobile data abroad?
If you travel within the EU, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein, however, you can blow your breath. Since June 2017, it is free to surf within these areas without additional costs.
An option to avoid high costs is to turn off your mobile data when traveling outside these areas. However, there are a lot of things to do on your mobile – without having to use mobile data on holiday.
Anyone who still wants to turn off their mobile data can do so in slightly different ways depending on which mobile the person has.
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How to prepare for the trip – the apps that do not consume mobile data
By preparing before the trip, anyone who wants to use several different functions on their mobile during the holiday abroad, something that Mobil was the first to write about. The vast majority of apps can be used in offline mode, i.e. without a connection.
For example, if you want to listen to songs via Spotify, you can download songs, entire playlists and albums. Then the music is made available regardless of whether the mobile data is active or not.
Various podcast apps such as “Sveriges Radio” and Apple’s “Podcaster” work in the same way. Before you leave, you can then stock up on different episodes to listen to during the journey.
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The same applies to various streaming services such as “Netflix”, “HBO” and “Viaplay” where episodes of TV series and movies can be downloaded and stored on the phone’s space.
Something that is less known is that Google Maps can save maps. If you download the map of your destination, you can easily navigate with the map once you arrive. However, step-by-step navigation and active directions require mobile data and thus a direct connection.
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This is how you call abroad without using up mobile data
Once in place, it can be good to connect to a Wifi. According to Mobile there are several apps that can be used completely without mobile data, as long as the mobile is connected to Wifi. These include: