Sending a text message internationally is done the same way that you would place a voice call. To get the complete number, use our calling codes search and enter the country the text is coming from and going to. Like placing an international call from your mobile phone, you can also use the plus (+) sign instead of dialing your country's Exit Code. Below I have provided steps on how to enable iMessage on your iPhone. From the home screen, select Settings. Select Messages. Drag the iMessage switch left or right to enable / disable iMessage. If iMessage is enabled and you are still unable to use it, please post back and I will be more than happy to further assist you. However, you must use texting and messaging apps to do this. There are a number of great apps for texting and messaging over WiFi. This messaging service is built right into your iPhone. When you are texting another person with an iPhone or iDevice the messages that are sent are 100% free. You can not send an SMS text message via iMessage. IMessage is an Apple service, hence no charge for any iMessage regardless of the recipient since an iMessage can only be sent to another iMessage user. How to send international SMS on iPhone. If you are an iPhone owner, you can send an international text message using a variety of apps. Some work more like chat services that use your data plan or Wi-Fi, while others assign a text-only phone number to every contact. The go-to app for free international texting on an iPhone is iMessage.

1. Imessage On Or Off
2. Can You Use Imessage For International Texting
3. Does Imessage Use Sms

Communication is important while traveling abroad. Whether it is staying in touch with friends and family back home or keeping in contact with travel partners, you need a way to stay connected. The problem is most of our cell phone plans don’t cover texting outside our home country. When it is available it comes at a high price. Luckily, there are ways to text for free when you are abroad.

There are many scenarios when we may need to text abroad and I will cover the following:

• How to Text for Free While Traveling Abroad
• How to Text Home from any Country in the World for Free
• How to Text from Home to Another Country for Free

How to Text for Free Abroad

As I mentioned in How To Use Your iPhone for Free Abroad, WiFi is king. With WiFi you can basically do anything for free which include texting. However, you can’t use your traditional texting apps to do this.

Texting from your smartphone in another country means you will pay to send and receive texts messages if you send a traditional SMS. Luckily, there are free ways to send texts using WiFi. When you have a WiFi connection you will not be using your data plan and all data will be sent and received over WiFi. However, you must use texting and messaging apps to do this.

There are a number of great apps for texting and messaging over WiFi.

iMessage

This messaging service is built right into your iPhone. When you are texting another person with an iPhone or iDevice the messages that are sent are 100% free. Be sure to be connected to WiFi and that the recipient has an iPhone. For a detailed description on using iMessage head over to this post which goes into detail.

Imessage On Or Off

Third Party Apps

We don’t all have an iPhone and we don’t need to. The debate over Android devices and iPhones is for another day and luckily it doesn’t matter which you prefer. There are great messaging apps for both types of phones.

WhatsApp

I am a WhatsApp user and have been for a long time. WhatsApp allows you to send free messages anywhere in the world over a data connection. What this means is when you are abroad you must have a WiFi connection to use it without being charged. When it is not connected to WiFi is uses your data plan which means it will not be cheap if you are traveling on your mobile plan based at home.

WhatsApp allows you send messages to anyone who has the app. It is available for just about any smart phone and only $0.99. Tell your friends and family to download it before you leave and stay in contact whenever you have a WiFi connection.

Download it here.

Facebook Messenger

Facebook messenger is another simple solution. Not only is it free but you will already have access to all of your facebook friends as contacts. This is different than sending a message through facebook but basically serves the same purpose as a texting and messaging app. Instantly reach your friends and let them reach you by activating push notifications. It doesn’t matter if your friends are on facebook at the time or not. It will send a notification directly to their phone using the app. It is a simple app and another favorite of mine.

Download it for Android and iPhone

How to Text Home from any Country in the World for Free

Texting home is just like texting within the country you are traveling. You will need WiFi connections to text and message your friends or family. Just follow the steps above to text to your home country while traveling abroad.

Have an iPhone? Learn how to call home for free too.

How to Text from Home to Any Other Country for Free

So you just got home from traveling and you made some friends abroad but how do you stay in touch? Well besides email and Skype you can still text anyone abroad for free using third party apps.

The key to remember at home is you DO NOT need a WiFi connection to text abroad.

Why is this the case? When you are at home you already have a data plan with your smart phone. This means you can avoid expensive international texts by using the same apps listed above. The benefit of texting from home you only need your regular cell phone plan and you do not need to be connected to WiFi. There is no problem with using WiFi but it is not necessary.

Sending a text through WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger would be just the same as sending an instant message if you were on your laptop. You are using an internet connection to send the message. In this case, with your smartphone, you are using your data plan that you already pay for at home for regular use. Sending messages through these apps will have no extra charge as long as you already pay for a data plan at home. If you have a smart phone you probably have a large data plan.

This means you can text your friends from home using third party texting and messenging apps. My favorites are WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger but there are dozens available. Due to the fact both parties need the app, using a popular app makes life easier. It increases the chances that a lot of your contacts have already installed the app on their phone.

Alternative Paid Options

WiFi is almost everywhere these days. We can find it in remote hostels, cafes, and airplanes. However, what do we do when we need to text without a WiFi connection?

You can buy a prepaid package from your mobile carrier before you leave the country. For example, AT&T will allow you to purchase 50 global text messages for $10 per month. You can add this to your plan before you leave and remove it when you get home. If you send 50 texts it will be a lot cheaper prepaying the $10 than paying the international texting rates. This is handy for traditional texts and there are no third party apps required.

International data packages are expensive for most carriers. Using AT&T as an example again, you are looking at $30 for only 120MB. That is not much for emailing or browsing the web but that is enough to a lot of messages using WhatsApp. If you prefer, you can use an app that uses data to send and receive messages. Be sure to pre-purchase data from your carrier before you leave for your trip.

WhatsApp has a handy built-in Usage Calculator in the settings. This allows you to monitor all of the data you have sent and received.

Data Usage

Can You Use Imessage For International Texting

As you can see, since I last cleared my statistics, I have sent and received 1,267 messages using WhatsApp which used 7.6 MB of data. That is not very much data and it is a lot of messages. So if you were to purchase 120 MB you will be able to send thousands of messages using the App with your pre-paid purchase. For some, this may be the best option and is one I use often.

Keys to Remember for Texting Abroad for Free

• Always use WiFi overseas
• Pre-Purchase data if you need to connect without WiFi
• Make sure all parties download the apps

There is always a way to stay connected for free when you are traveling. If you can cut back on the texting and only text when you have WiFi then it will always be free. If you must text without WiFi, pre-purchase an international data plan before you leave.

Does Imessage Use Sms

Apple iPhones are my suggestion for anyone planning to study or live abroad. Why? Well, Apple’s iMessage and Facetime services have international messaging and voice and video calling built in to others with Apple devices (with no additional fees) and the setup of iMessage and Facetime is simple and user friendly. Bonus: iOS (Apple iPhone’s operating system) has some of the best (and most user-friendly) travel and communication apps.

So, there are two scenarios here that I will cover:
1. You are traveling/moving abroad and want to keep in touch with other iPhone users in the U.S.
2. You know an iPhone user traveling/moving abroad and want to keep in touch with him or her overseas

Want another great international phone tip? Check out this post.

A note about iMessage and Facetime:

Messages is the built-in app on iPhones that handles both SMS-based text messaging (the green bubbles sent to people without iPhones) and data-based iMessages (the blue bubbles between people with iPhones). You can always send SMS-based (green) text messages from your phone number (whether you are using a U.S. or international SIM card) to another person, so long as text messaging is included in your mobile plan. In other words, if you are in the U.S., with a U.S. SIM card and U.S. phone number, sending text messages to U.S. numbers should work perfectly. If you are in Germany, for example, with a German SIM card and a German phone number, sending text messages to German numbers should work perfectly.

Changing the iMessage settings I mention below does not change your text messaging settings. Instead, we are changing how the iMessage (data-based, blue bubbled) system works so that you can text internationally for no additional fees. In other words, if you are in Germany, with a German SIM card, and a German phone number, sending iMessages to a U.S. iPhone should work perfectly. Or, if you are in the U.S., with a U.S. SIM card, with a U.S. number, sending iMessages to a German iPhone should work perfectly.

Facetime is the built-in app on iPhones that handles video and audio calls over data – in other words, calls between iPhones/iPads/Macs that uses up data on your mobile plan, rather than minutes. By following the steps below, you can easily place these video and audio without international fees to international users.

International iMessaging and Facetime calls between iPhone users (having followed the steps below) are free. That is, incurs no additional fees above the regular data fees included your mobile plan. All of the below steps assume you (and the recipient) have data included in your mobile service plans, as all smartphones usually do, and/or you (and the recipient) are sending and receiving iMessages and Facetime calls over wifi, without using up any data.

You are traveling/moving abroad and want to keep in touch with other iPhone users in the U.S.

1. When you purchased and set up your phone, you automatically made your current, U.S. phone number link to iMessage and Facetime. You can check this on your iPhone by going to Settings > Messages > Send & Receive > You can be reached by iMessage at: and going to Settings > FaceTime > You can be reached by FaceTime at:

2. If you are still in the U.S., your American phone number should be listed. If so, continue to step 3. If not, check and make sure that a) you have iMessage turned on, under Settings > Messages > iMessage (the switch to the right should be green) and b) you are logged in to your Apple ID, under Settings > Messages > Send & Receive > Apple ID: youremailaddress. If it’s still not working, try this Apple troubleshooting guide.

3. We need to link your email address to your iMessage and Facetime accounts. Under Settings > Messages > Send & Receive > You can be reached by iMessage at: and under Settings > FaceTime > You can be reached by FaceTime at: see if your email address is listed. If so, skip to step 4. If not, click on Add Another Email… and follow the prompts, adding your main email address.

4. Once both your phone number and your email address are listed, scroll down and click on your email address under the Start New Conversations From (Lost? it’s under Settings > Messages > Send & Receive > You can be reached by iMessage at: and under Settings > FaceTime > You can be reached by FaceTime at:). This will make new messages that you send in iMessage to other Apple users, send from your email address, rather than your phone number. Make sure your contacts have your email address in their phones’ address books, so they know its you.

5. Once you are abroad and have purchased SIM card (did you read this guide?), insert it into your phone (following the carrier’s instructions). Note that at this point, your phone number will change. In other words, the SIM card that identified your phone as the U.S. number (555) XXX-XXXX is no longer active (can no longer receive or send calls/texts/etc), and the new SIM card, that identifies your phone as the overseas number, is active. Hold on to your old U.S. SIM card and store it in a safe place – you can always switch the cards back if necessary.

6. Your iPhone will now add your new overseas number to iMessages (so that you can send and receive messages from this overseas number) and to Facetime (so you can place video and audio calls – over data or wifi – from this overseas number). You can check this under Settings > Messages > Send & Receive > You can be reached by iMessage at: and under Settings > FaceTime > You can be reached by FaceTime at: – both your new, overseas number and your email address should be listed. Make sure that Start New Conversations From has your email address with a check next to it.

7. Start a new message by going to your Messages app, then click the compose message icon (top right of the screen). You should now be able to both send text messages (the SMS green bubbled messages) from your overseas number to other numbers in the same country and send iMessages (the data-based blue bubbled messages) to anyone in the world with an iPhone, iPad or Mac! The Messages app will automatically configure the message into either an iMessage (your contact’s name or number in the to field will turn blue) for iPhone, iPad, or Mac users or into a SMS text message (your contact’s name or number in the to field will turn green) for non-iPhone users.

8. Start a new Facetime call by opening your Facetime app, then selecting your contact, and, scrolling down, choosing either the camera symbol (for a video call) or phone symbol (for an audio call) next to the “Facetime” option.

9. Voila! Enjoy both domestic, overseas texting and international iMessaging and international video and audio calls!

You know an iPhone user traveling/moving abroad and want to keep in touch with him or her overseas

1. When you purchased and setup your phone, you automatically made your U.S. phone number link to iMessage and Facetime. You can check this on your iPhone by going to Settings > Messages > Send & Receive > You can be reached by iMessage at: and going to Settings > FaceTime > You can be reached by FaceTime at:

2. Your U.S. mobile phone number should be listed. If so continue to step 3. If not, check and make sure that a) you have iMessage turned on, under Settings > Messages > iMessage (the switch to the right should be green) and b) you are logged in to your Apple ID, under Settings > Messages > Send & Receive > Apple ID: youremailaddress. If it’s still not working, try this Apple troubleshooting guide.

3. We need to link your email address to your iMessage and Facetime accounts. Under Settings > Messages > Send & Receive > You can be reached by iMessage at: and under Settings > FaceTime > You can be reached by FaceTime at: see if your email address is listed. If so, skip to step 4. If not, click on Add Another Email… and follow the prompts, adding your main email address.

4. Once both your phone number and your email address are listed, scroll down and click on your email address under the Start New Conversations From (Lost? it’s under Settings > Messages > Send & Receive > You can be reached by iMessage at: and under Settings > FaceTime > You can be reached by FaceTime at:). This will make new messages that you send in iMessage to other Apple users, send from your email address, rather than your phone number. Make sure your contacts have your email address in their phones’ address books, so they know its you.

5. Start a new message by going to your Messages app, then click the compose message icon (top right of the screen). You should now be able to both send text messages (the SMS green bubbled messages) from your U.S. number to other numbers in the U.S. and send iMessages (the data-based blue bubbled messages) to anyone in the world with an iPhone, iPad, or Mac! The Messages app will automatically configure the message into either an iMessage (your contact’s name or number in the to field will turn blue) for iPhone, iPad, or Mac users or into a SMS text message (your contact’s name or number in the to field will turn green) for non-iPhone users.

6. Start a new Facetime call by opening your Facetime app, then selecting your contact, and, scrolling down, choosing either the camera symbol (for a video call) or phone symbol (for an audio call) next to the “Facetime” option.

7. Voila! Enjoy both domestic, U.S. texting and international iMessaging and international video and audio calls!