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Tips on How to Use Your Phone & Hotspot on a TelCel MEXICO Sim Card - YouTube
Channel: Story Chasing
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Hello, Story Chasers.
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Before I left for my Mexico trip, I was really
concerned about my internet connection and
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how was I actually going to be able to do
work when I got there.
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As you know, as a digital nomad, it's super
important that you actually have an internet
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connection everywhere you go so that you can
get your work done.
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So the next question is what do you do if
you don't actually have a current cell phone
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plan or data plan that will actually work
in the country that you're visiting?
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That answer is coming up next.
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Hello everyone and welcome to Story Chasing.
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My name is Amber and I sold my house and quit
my job so that I could travel full-time and
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chase my dreams.
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And now, I'm helping people just like you
to transition into nomadic life and work remotely
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in beautiful places like Mexico so long as
you have a strong data connection and an Internet
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plan that works there.
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So the question is, what do you do if you
don't have a data plan that actually works
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in the country that you're visiting?
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We're going to get to that now.
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When I was actually planning my trip to go
to San Felipe, Mexico.
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I was concerned about the Internet connection
and so I was trying to research does my two
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current data plans actually work in Mexico?
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I have two plans.
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One is AT&T and that is through a third-party
person that I purchased off of Ebay.
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I called him and he said, "Nope, it does not
actually work in Mexico," based on a data
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plan that he's on.
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The second plan that I have is Verizon and
it's the prepaid Verizon plan that I have
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linked right here that I purchased back in
December, and it's just a prepaid plan that
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I use.
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I'm still testing it out and it does actually
work in Mexico.
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However, you have to pay an additional $5
per day in order to get access and even then
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you're capped at half a gig of data per day
and that just doesn't work for me.
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I actually wanted to relax a lot in Mexico.
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So I was hoping to not do too much work, but
just in case I wanted to make sure I had a
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backup plan for my data.
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Since neither of those carriers would really
work in my situation over there, I decided
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to wait until I actually got to Mexico and
find out who their local carrier was and then
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figure out what I needed to do in order to
get a plan with them.
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So I got over to Mexico and even the people
that I was traveling with that had the AT&T
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International Service, they said they just
weren't really getting a great connection
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for whatever reason, it just didn't work in
that particular area.
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So what we ended up doing is we went into
downtown San Philippe, Mexico.
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We found out that the local cell phone and
data plan there is Telcel.
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So we ended up going to three different locations
to figure out exactly what we needed to do
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and these were just local places inside of
San Philippe.
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One was actually a Telcel store.
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Then we went into a local convenience store
called OXXO, which is the equivalent to a
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7/11 and they actually sold SIM cards there
and you could actually pay them to get service
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on that plan there.
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But what we decided to was just go ahead and
buy a SIM card, take it back to the RV resort
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that we were staying at and then just go online,
activate the SIM card and go ahead and load
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the plan with the plan that we could pick
online.
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We felt like that was just the best thing
for us so that we could look at all the different
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plans and figure out exactly what we wanted.
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So you want to buy a SIM card and these SIM
cards are a little less than two US dollars
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per SIM card and they come in a little package
like this.
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On the back of them, it has your IMEI number,
your SIM card number, and your telephone number.
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You'll definitely want to make sure that you
keep this information because you're going
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to need it to go online and load your card,
or whenever you're going into the local Telcel
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or OXXO convenience store to load the card.
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In order to use these SIM cards, you need
to make sure that your cell phone or your
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hot spot or jet pack is already unlocked.
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It actually comes in several different sizes
in here.
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It has the micro and the Nanos so it should
fit any of your cell phone or data plan devices.
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The other thing about these SIM cards is they
already come activated.
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I didn't actually know that it was activated
when I bought it and I was confused.
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I was trying to go online and activate it
and I couldn't get it activated and so I found
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out later on it was already activated.
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Next, you can load it either by going online
to the Telcel website or you can load it at
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OXXO or the Telcel retail store.
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I actually chose to go ahead and load it online
just because I wanted to look at their various
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plans.
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The first time I was actually able to load
it, without any problems, I actually got the
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largest plane they had, which was at five
gigs of data for right around $25.
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But it was a little bit cumbersome on their
website.
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Everything is in Spanish, of course, because
you're in Mexico.
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So you do have to either know Spanish or you're
going to have to do some Google translating
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on there.
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So have the Google translate up in your toolbar
of your browser or you're going to have to
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look it up on Google translate or an app on
your phone.
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It's just easier to have the extension in
your chrome browser and let it translate for
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you.
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So I was actually able to load everything
just fine the first time.
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The second time that I went to go load it
because I ran out of data, I was uploading
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videos.
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So the second time that I went to load it,
I couldn't get it to load.
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It wanted me to verify my credit card and
it would send me a small dollar amount to
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my credit card or my bank card.
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It wanted me to confirm the amount that hit
my bank card or my credit card and we're talking
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five cents, seven cents here.
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So I would try to go and confirm it, but mine
was in dollars, theirs was in pesos.
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I tried to do a conversion and it just wouldn't
do it.
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It kept saying that that was wrong and I just
could not get it to work.
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It was a really a royal pain.
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So my advice is just go into the store and
load it.
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You can go in there and just tell them exactly
what plan you want and pay for it in-store
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and give them your phone number and they'll
go ahead and load it for you there.
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It's the easiest way to do it.
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But let me tell you once it's all loaded,
the plan was amazing.
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It was really fast.
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It was an amazing data connection.
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We had no issues whatsoever while we were
there.
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So it's a pretty easy process once you know
what to do.
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My other tip for you before loading your SIM
card is a go to an ATM and actually get pesos
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with your check card.
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It's so much simpler to just pay everybody
in cash and you don't have to worry about
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using your check card or your credit card
anywhere or having to possibly pay any of
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those foreign exchange fees.
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Every bank is different.
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Yours may not charge you the foreign exchange
fee.
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Mine actually does.
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So I just went and got some pesos out of the
ATM and then I used that to pay for everything
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around there, including loading my SIM card.
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So hope you have fun traveling to Mexico.
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If you have any questions for me, go ahead
and leave them in the comments below.
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Make sure you subscribe.
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And over here there're some more videos on
traveling to Mexico.
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So check out that playlist so you can see
more tips and tricks to traveling in Mexico.
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We'll see in the next video.
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