Best Mobile/Sim Card for use in Ecuador/Galapagos Islands

[100 IAN]

Teenage son is off to Ecuador & Galapagos Islands for a 2 week working 'holiday' and we want to be able to stay in touch with him.

Where's the best place to get a sim for his phone so that keeping in touch isn't going to bankrupt him/us?

[carreauchompeur]

Hola.

Just replying whilst overlooking the beach on Isabela island

There's no cheap way in short. You'll pay one way or another. I'd just get him to use his current SIM and roam it. I've had problems with local SIM cards not accepting international calls here and in Argentina. Just check that his current provider has a roaming agreement with Ecuador.

Failing that it's really easy to walk into a shop here and buy a PAYG sim with any of the networks... Not worth it for 2wks though as they aren't really set up for international use.

Wifi is fairly widespread and free so you can save mobile calls for emergencies and FaceTime/Skype for everything else. Internet on the islands is pretty slow but generally works except for the odd long outage.

What's he doing over here?

Edited by carreauchompeur on Friday 1st July 00:59

[100 IAN]

He's doing a student working program helping out in a school and then a turtle project.

It'll be a great experience for him and I'm very jealous, would love to be going with him but sadly not.

[carreauchompeur]

Great stuff, sounds like a good opportunity. I teach English at the University on Santa Cruz.

If you or he have any last minute concerns or problems whilst here feel free to PM me

[Mr Pointy]

Install Whatsapp on your phones. Whenever he's in WiFi range you can message & call each other for free.