Category: 2022 Myrtle Beach

I spent a good portion of 2018 planning a trip to Myrtle Beach. I had every little detail planned out: where we would eat, where we would stay, where we would stop. I spent hours tracing our entire route, mapping out every single McDonald’s (for bathroom breaks) over the 1,500 km plus route to Myrtle Beach.

My planning was almost perfect, with one tiny exception who goes by the name of Florence.

I like travelling in September because places are less crowded and prices are cheaper due to most kids being back in school. Unfortunately, September is also prime hurricane season.

Our resort cancelled our reservation and we were forced to exchange my meticulous plan for a new destination.

We haven’t had a chance to revisit my plan due to some minor health issues and of course, COVID-19. It looks like Myrtle Beach will finally happen in 2022.

Next month in October (which is not prime hurricane season) we will execute my plan.

I am so enthusiastic about this trip I even splurged on a new domain name just for this trip.

Since things do change in 4 years (especially during a pandemic) I have had to make a few minor changes to my plan. A few restaurants had to be removed as they don’t exist anymore and I was forced to book a different resort. Apparently 1,500 sq. ft is not enough for 3 adults and 4 children.

Here is my updated Furkot trip:

Because of COVID-19, I haven’t been down to the United States for a few years now.

Before every trip to the US I would research various ways of getting low cost cell phone coverage down there. I have fond memories of surfing the web in the car on my HTC Touch, a privilege that would have cost me hundreds of dollars per month to have in Canada.

I’ve used prepaid AT&T SIM cards from eBay, SIM cards from the now defunct Roam Mobility and in later years Rogers’ Roam-Like Home. It has been getting easier and easier for Canadians to get decent roaming coverage in the USA. Rogers Roam-Like Home feature was by far the simplest option as it didn’t even require a SIM card swap; the catch though, it is/was pricey.

I am with Telus now and was prepared to just use their Easy Roam feature which gives me access to all my current cellular plan features, including unlimited calling and access to my shared data for only $12/day. This doesn’t sound too bad unless you actually do some math.

We will be in the US for 12 days and both my wife and myself will want to use our cell phones while travelling.

$12/day x 2 lines x 12 days = $288 CAD + HST.

I have a tablet plan as well and I am not sure if the above figure includes roaming for my tablet or not.

With the bar set so high I was pretty sure I could find a not too difficult way to get cheaper cell phone coverage while travelling.

I found several reasonable travel data eSIM offers, however I could not find one that actually included voice or text, just data.

Then I discovered T-Mobile and their wonderfully simple T-Mobile Prepaid app.

Their pricing is decent (at least compared to anything available in Canada). I estimate it will cost us approx. $130 CAD and will included unlimited data. I tested out the T-Mobile Prepaid app and It seems pretty simple to use. I don’t have to swap out my SIM card as T-Mobile uses eSIM. I can sign up in the app and it appears I can use a Canadian credit card to pay.

I am pretty excited to give them a go.