Using your Mobile

Tips for using your mobile device in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Using your mobile device in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

What's the deal?

David and I get asked a lot about using mobile devices in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) by either family, friends or guests.

Hopefully the following info will be both helpful and useful for you.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is not in the European Union (EU), and to be honest won't be, for a considerable time to come (I think).

So if you are used to travelling around Europe, enjoying your mobile device, as you would "at home", at cheap rates with your at "home SIM card", sadly that's not going to be the case when traveling around BiH.

Connectivity using your UK or EU account is going to be mega costly! Trust me!

But it's not all doom and gloom. Far from it!

As part of your Bosnia and Herzegovina pre-visit planning, check if your mobile device is "unlocked", in other words, not tied to a specific network provider.

If it is "unlocked", that means the device will accept any SIM card and, by default, any network.

On arrival in BiH, stop at any of the plethora of streetside kiosks and buy a SIM card.

As in other countries, there are various networks on offer.

To be honest, for tourists or visitors, the differences each network offers, won't have any drastic impact on your visit.

SIM cards start at around 5 BAM (£2.50/€2.50), which allows you a few calls and a tiny amount of starting data.

Look carefully at the SIM and you'll see that they come in all sizes from Large to Nano. You just need to "Press Out" the size for your device.

The language on your device will initially change to Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian but it's easy to set that back to your operating language of choice.

"Topping Up" is so so easy (and extremely inexpensive) and can be done from any street kiosks, as well as the checkouts in most grocery stores.

Most of the country is now covered by 4G, so you should be good to go when posting your snaps and videos of "Beautiful Bosnia", to your online social networks.

The average 4G speeds I have experienced are: 8Mb up and 4Mb down.

Also, like other countries, nearly every coffee bar, pub and restaurant offers free wi-fi, so it's worth a quick check, thus saving your mobile data.

If your mobile device is "locked" into a UK/EU network provider, then my TOP TIP is to put it airplane mode for the duration of your trip and just use wi-fi whenever you can.

Oh! Did I say that more and more buses travelling between cities in the region are now offering free wi-fi?