Pay As You Go Sim for Los Angeles & Hawaii.

I am off to LA, Palm Springs and Hawaii for a few weeks soon and would like to know your thoughts on buying a PAYG Sim for use in the US. I have established that my phone is both unlocked and quadband.

I just want to be able to make the odd call within the US whilst I am away and receive / send a few texts from / to the UK. Mobile internet would be useful but not essential.

Can I just walk into somewhere like Walmart & hand over a few dollars for a sim or is it more complicated than that?

Most of my use will be in Hawaii & quite a few sites recommend AT&T but like the UK there is so much choice

A prod in the right direction would be appreciated.

It's very easy as long as your phone's unlocked and works in the US.

I did it in Vegas in March - went to a T Mobile store, paid about $2 a day which included unlimited US calls and 2G data.

You obviously get a completely different US number though, so calls to your UK number won't get through unless you divert them which costs.

But it's very simple to do and I recommend it.

Keep your eye open at the airport, there maybe a vending machine that dishes out a PAYG sim. I saw one at Newark recently.

I second what gumshoe said. I have a US sim with t-mobile which goes in my unlocked phone. It gives me unlimited calls, text, and 2G data for $2 per day (only charged on days when the phone is used). It completely transformed my ability to communicate properly whilst on the move.

You don't even have to give an address to get it -- pop into a store and they can set you up in 5 minutes.

Thanks very much for your advice. Greatly appreciated.

I use a company called Red Pocket but they have to post the SIM to you.

I used mysimplemobile.com last time, buying a SIM off ebay in advance, but it helped having a Galaxy Nexus apparently as it's a pentaband phone so works on T-Mobiles and AT&Ts HSPA+ networks.