Hungary made me dig out my old flip phone for a day

Last summer I was in Budapest for a fitness conference and my carrier blocked my data roaming because of some EU digital service rule I didn't even know existed. My maps app went dead at 2pm and I spent 4 hours trying to find a gym that a local friend recommended, using paper signs and asking strangers. Turns out Hungary has stricter rules on foreign SIM data usage for non-EU visitors, and my US plan just didn't cover it. I got back to my hotel and looked it up, found out the EU's net neutrality tweaks are different from what we have in the States. It made me wonder, is it a free speech thing when your basic internet access gets cut off by a border? Has anyone else gotten caught with a dead phone in a country that treats data like a controlled substance?

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the_max19d ago

Wait, four hours? That is insane. I can't imagine being in a city I don't know and having my maps just die like that. I would have just sat on a curb and cried into my dead phone. The whole thing about the EU's rules being different on paper for us just sounds like a giant headache that nobody warned you about. Honestly, that would've been the end of my trip right there, I'd have just gone back to the hotel and ordered room service for the rest of the week.

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