You need data when you travel: to load maps, to stay in touch with friends and family back home, to check train schedules and much more. Chris explains how easy it is to buy a prepaid SIM card in Europe and shows you how to install the prepaid SIM card on your iPhone. Make sure your iPhone is unlocked before you travel and you can easily swap it out and use a new SIM card.

We've found that using iMessage and FaceTime with our iCloud account is the easiest way to text with other iPhone users.

For our non-iPhone friends and family, we tell them to install the WhatsApp app and we can text, make phone calls, and video calls using data only. Be sure to set this up before traveling using your US phone number. You can then continue to use this US phone number with WhatsApp.

Another thing to note: If you make phone calls or send text messages to friends in the United States, you may need to add the country code to their phone number in your contacts. By default, none of our contacts had 1 added and we didn't understand why our calls weren't going through at first!

Music: Electro Dollars by Rondo Brothers

We are Sandra, Chris and James the poodle and this is our big adventure! Join us as we travel with our dog throughout the United States and Europe and don't forget to check out our blog at OurBigAdventure.com

Please take the opportunity to connect and share this video with your friends and family if you find it useful.