Mobile phones are very common and popular in Croatia - youll often see locals with their mobile glued to their ear. A mobile phone in Croatia is called a "mobitel".

The three mobile phone networks in Croatia are T-Mobile, VIP and Tele2. If bringing your handset from home, you will find it will hook up automatically to one of these. You also might find Tomato and BonBon, although both of these are owned by one of the main mobile companies, and not really separate networks in their own right.

If you think youll be using your mobile phone a reasonable amount to either make phone calls within Croatia, or text and call home, you should consider purchasing a pre-paid SIM card. The three mobile network operators all have details of these on the websites (see above) and you can buy SIMs at some news kiosks and other stores.

Its not so much of a concern these days what with all these ultra-modern phones, but if you have a slightly older phone make sure it works on the 900 or 1800 MHz GSM frequencies that are utilised in Croatia. (Travellers from Europe shouldnt have any problems, but travellers from further abroad, particularly North America, may need to double-check). Make sure also that, if necessary, you call your home mobile phone operator before travelling, to make sure that roaming is enabled. At the same time, youll probably want to switch off data roaming if you have a smartphone, so you dont rack up crazy data charges!