Australia Blog

Getting a Virgin Mobile Phone in Australia

Arriving in Australia a few days ago, Nick and I decided to get local mobile phones for our time in Australia for a few reasons.

1) It's fun
2) We can text each other and people we know
3) Easy to stay in touch and arrange meetings, etc than land-based lines
4) It's cheap

Coming from the US and our mobile plans, I was unsure of how it works here...but Chris sorted us out on a Virgin Mobile "pay as you go" plan that he is one. All we had to do was:

1) Buy a SIM card from a Virgin Mobile Dealer for $29AUS. (This included $29 of credit on our new phone numbers)
2) Insert the SIM card in our mobile phones
3) Call the free number that Virgin provides to activate the number

Once we bought the SIM card, the whole process took no more than 20 minutes and I was quickly texting Ging, Chris, and folks in Indonesia, for pennies per message. Very convenient and handy. I would recommend to any traveller to Australia to make sure you have a mobile phone that SIM cards work in so you can stay connected while on the road (most US mobile phones will not allow you to do this withbout jumping through many hoops).

If you want my Australia number, e-mail me: sean at bootsnall dot com and I will send it along. Yahooooo!