I'm wondering what to do about communications once I get to Thailand later this month. I'll only be there for a couple weeks. Do most tourists bring their mobile phones from their home countries and get a Thailand-enabled SIM card upon arrival? Is that even possible? Or does everyone just rent a phone for a couple weeks? And are there any shops at the airport where I can take care of this?

 

Thanks in advance for any advice.

The cheapest is to get a sim card when you get to Thailand. They are prepaid and you can get one for like 200 baht and then put a few hundred baht on it. If your phone allows sim cards, this is the best option.

If I am only going to be a couple weeks in thailand than I will buy a cheap mobile and a sim card and put a couple hundred baht on it. When I leave I just give it to one of the boys to use.

If I have a return date in mind than I will buy a better phone and load it with minutes so that the number will remain active until I return.

I usually stop in several countries and I found that the easiest way is to use my IPhone.

It works everywhere. For local calls I use hotel phones and for (short) international calls I am ready to accept roaming charges. I do turn off data services on international trips.

I just bought a cheap phone at home (

I'm never in Thailand for more than a few days at a time so I just use my Australian mobile phone. Receiving/making calls is fairly expensive so people mainly SMS me and I usually SMS if I'm out and about. If I need to call someone (anywhere in the world), I do it from the Skype account on my laptop.

Thanks for the replies, everyone. I've been to Thailand countless times since 1996, and only on my last visit, last January, did I feel naked without a mobile. Twice guys I had met in DJ Station looked at me with disdain and asked, "Why don't you have a mobile." I realized that in 2010, "because I'm on vacation" just doesn't cut it.

the whole story is just a few posts below: by gaybutton, on 1-2-CALL. This is Thaild most known mobuy provider. SIMcards can be had from 20 bt,or sometimes free. However, the main thing to note is that you buy both time and money with topupcards: in the many offices of the fone comp. you can choose a program to have the lapse-time much longer-up to 1 year. TYhat is: if you want that-with those DJ boys it might be wiser to have a nr that expires soon after you exit Thailnd. As always: up to you. Also: be very, very caereful as to who you give out your nr.-expect endless requests for whatever later on.

Twice guys I had met in DJ Station looked at me with disdain and asked, "Why don't you have a mobile." I realized that in 2010, "because I'm on vacation" just doesn't cut it.

Yeah... You've got to have a mobile. I never have a local SIM/number, just an Australian number, so I tell them to just SMS me. You can at least do that with your normal phone if you have global roaming enabled.

 

Also: be very, very caereful as to who you give out your nr.-expect endless requests for whatever later on.

I'm fairly liberal with giving out my number but never had that problem (overseas number though). But I do get a lot of e-mails! Some boys I met on the road are still e-mailing me years later, telling me what they're doing and where they are moving etc. LOL.

for travels I have 2-SIM phone and use 2 SIMs at the same time: local and my own... local SIM for Thailand is 1-2-CALL card...

 

from my experience: 1-2-CALL has best covering in Thailand: even in hills at North of Thaialnd it continues to work when rest aren't working already (no signal) - from 2-sim phone it easy visible: when 1-2-CALL at local card continues to work, after few switches my own card est. roaming via 1-2-CALL too: rest networks are unreachable...