How to get a SIM card in Goa

mg 2467 3

Before we went to Goa we researched how to get a SIM card and we only found complicated guides saying it is necessary to go few times to the shop, to give a passport size picture and to have a contact in India. So we decided to not even try. In any of the cases we did not need internet all the time. We like disconnecting for a while from time to time. Another reason is that we had internet in the stay that we had, and at the restaurants you could also get, most of the times. In any case, in a moment of the trip in which we were going to need internet just in case, we decided to go to that hard process. We went to Vodafone and what we found is a much simpler process than that writen online.

The prices we give and their exchange to euro are based on the exchange rate we got with our card. We got the Vodafone card the 10th of January of 2020.

What can you get

What they offered us is a prepaid card for tourists that, according to the person there, gets canceled three months later. Each stay in the country has a maximum of three months for us, and we did not plan on staying longer, so it was fit for us. The fee (SIM card and tariff package) was either 330 ₹ (4.18 €) for a month of tariff or 680 ₹ (8.62 €) for three months. The tariff package includes unlimited calls in India and 1.5GB/day of traffic over data. If you get one month, when it is over you can recharge the card and get the package again, because the card itself lasts 3 months, you only lose the internet connection and the ilimited calls to indian numbers.

How to get it

As I mentioned, the process is pretty simple. First, find the nearest Vodafone shop. If you, as we did, go to Colva beach, then go to Margao by bus for around 20 ₹ (0.25 €) per person per trip and then walk or take a tuk tuk to the shop. Then go to the Vodafone shop in the area. You ask for a prepaid card with data. They will explain you the tariff I explained before, and ask you for your passport, some address in your home country and in India and the name of your father or husband (for some reason). They will take a picture of you with the phone. You pay the selected tariff and they give you the SIM card with a phone number and a code. Then, few hours later you call the number they gave you with your new SIM card, give the code to a machine that answers and your card gets activated in some moment within the day.

Easy peasy, you got your card for India with calls and more data per day than what you probably need in the whole month.