SIM card for traveling to US

Has anyone tried buying a prepaid SIM card in Japan to use while traveling in the US? Did it work well? Did you encounter any problems with it?

Any recommendations or advice would be greatly appreciated!

10 comments
  1. I bought an AT&T prepaid (a while back, and I knew the area I was going to was AT&T) and it worked fine. There’s a few sellers on amazon selling “international” prepaid sim cards. If the price looks reasonable and its a prime item, should be fine.

    Ahamo [docomo’s cheap SIM brand] has free international roaming but there’s some fine print on the length of roam, if you’re going for a long period it might not be usable.

  2. Yeah don’t, at your first stop go into any of the electronics stores and buy a sim card and get their help activating it.

  3. Do you have Ahamo? You can use data free overseas. Once you hit 20gb it slows down considerably though.

  4. Google Fi if you have a phone with eSIM. You can buy it online with US address and configure it on your device before the trip.

  5. If you use Softbank, you can just use data roaming for free. Phone calls and SMS will cost though. If not, just buy after you arrive. It is abundant.

  6. I was using Rakuten sim card and it was just fine. We get 2GB data per month. Calls, I am not so sure.

  7. In the US, every major carrier has a prepaid plan. You can buy them in convenience stores or Best Buy or pretty much anywhere. The airport for sure. Just pick one that’s cheap and has good coverage where you are located. T-mobile is good.

    Make sure your cell phone is international, we use different LTE bands in the US. iPhone or any major flagship android phone is fine. Cheap phones or Japanese phones not always fine.

  8. Go to Amazon JP and find those travel cards, the cheap one mostly imported from Hong Kong (I am from Hong Kong so I already recognized some of them), and those are working as expected, just grab it.

    Or in airport, I’ve seen some SIM vending machines which you can buy those cards but more expensive.

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