Avoiding Hefty Bills when Taking your Mobile Phone to Bali
When visiting Bali you will most likely want to take your mobile phone with you. And use it. We're not big on making calls on our phones, but we definitely want to be able to use our phones to connect online whilst out and about. Wifi and internet is pretty good on Bali and most places have Wifi so you can pretty much get connected no matter where you are. But if you like to be connected 24/7 and don't want to scrabble around for free wifi signals and passwords, then this handy blog will help with best options and costs.
When taking your mobile phone to Bali there are some things to consider before you travel.
You can take great quality professional photo's on your smart phone cutting out the need to take unnecessary bulky equipment. We're photographers, but choose our smart phones over our bulky SLR every time for family travel. We have some great handy guides to share soon on getting picture perfect shots on your smart phone (stay tuned for this you won't want to miss it).
If you do use your phone to take pictures there are couple of things to do to avoid hefty phone bills and roaming charges. You can still encounter costs even when you're not 'using' your phone to make calls / message / or browse online, but simply using it as a camera, so make sure you follow the below tips to avoid these extra costs before landing in Bali:
Download Whatsapp & Messenger Before you go - Everybody in Bali uses Whatsapp. It is helpful to download apps such as Whatsapp & Messenger before you leave for Bali if you haven't got them on your phone already. You can make calls and send messages back home for free whilst accessing free wifi whilst in Bali and everywhere has Wifi. We work remotely and take advantage of the free wifi in all places in Bali wherever we can. What's more, pretty much everybody on the island uses Whatsapp and it's the main way you will contact local people for all the things you'll need during your stay: drivers, hotel communication, services etc. This can be helpful to have to communicate with your driver and other service providers, without needing wifi.
Turn Off Data Roaming - Make sure your “mobile data roaming” is turned off before you land in Bali to avoid coming home with a large data bill. Be aware that if you have international roaming activated on your mobile remember that you will be charged for phone calls you answer + also calls you make. For SMS you can actually read them without being charged, but messages you send will be charged at a higher rate. Each service provider has different data roaming charges for international travel so check before you leave. I'm with Vodafone and at last check they charge me £6.50 per day on top of my usual monthly bill to switch my data on (whether I use it or not).
Download an Airlo eSIM digital data pack to get instant connectivity from the moment you land. Airlo offer different packages depending on your usage, but they are way cheaper than using your own providers data. So if you think you'll need data from the second you land in Bali - download your Airlo eSIM.
The Cheapest option: Get a local SIM card - By far the cheapest and best method to get connected in Bali and stay connected cheaply for the duration of your stay is to get a local SIM. You will need to make sure your phone is “unlocked” from your service provider before you travel for this but most newer smart phones come unlocked as standard. Phone credit and data is inexpensive in Bali and by far the cheapest option for getting connected. You can get a local sim at the airport when you land, one of the first shops you'll encounter at the airport on the left hand side is a sim card shop. This allows you to get connected whilst in the airport. Simply pop into one of these stores and they will do the whole thing for you. Costs are good and you will be connected straight away and can use your original phone number when giving this out to new contacts during your stay. You can choose your duration of stay and choose data according to this. It is even cheaper if you can wait to head out of the airport and go to a local shop. This is a matter of a few pounds cost wise however so we just do ours at the airport for peace of mind as we have kids and want to be instantly connected. If we were solo travellers we would definitely get to our destination and go to any sim shop in that village / city. Or stop off at any we see on the road when on the journey purely to save a meals worth of savings. For an easy life - the airport will see you right. To make this process even faster, you can also use a service like Klook like we did to organise it all before you go for quick collection at the airport or even delivery at your hotel. By using Klook, you can choose your level of sim and book your chosen shop for collection. When you are at the airport you simply go into the shop you chose and they will have your booking ready. You literally hand them your phone (and you will need your passport for legislation purposes) and they will do everything for you. The whole process takes a few mins and you're ready to go. We paid £35 for the month and used this phone heavily for daily google maps whilst out finding beaches etc. When we got home we still had loaddddds of data left.
Your mobile provider will offer International Travel Packs and offers for international roaming, that are part of your contract or can be added on to your contract. Be sure to check out your provider to see the costs involved for these. Costs can be quite high and for stays longer than a day or so you may want to look at local providers for more cost effective ways to stay connected.
And that's where AIRALO come in. For anything longer than 1 week, we recommend getting an Indonesian eSIM from Airalo to avoid unexpected or high roaming bills and keep you connected literally from the moment you land. An eSIM will allow you to install a digital data pack for your phone before you leave for Bali - meaning you'll be instantly connected when you land in Bali. Not just Bali, Airlo cover 200 countries too. All managed from an easy to use App. Sounds like an ad.... It's not. Airalo is just an easy cost effective fix for people wanting instant connectivity and to be able to use their phones like a local, rather than scrabbling around for free WIFI or having to wait until you get back to the room to do anything online. And that's peace of mind for us with kids. Once you have your AIRLO account you can use this for all places all over the world too.
We hope you found this post helpful. We recently travelled to Bali for 1 month and only one of us needed a local sim. Bali is very connected and offers free wifi in most places (your accommodation / bars / restaurants etc). This is all the kids and one adult needed. The other adult needed the sim for staying connected whilst out and about and in more rural places (such as for google maps etc).
