In a weeks time I am travelling to Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and then staying in Australia for a year. I am aware that my SIM card won’t work when in these places and plan to get a physical sim when in each place, although I want to keep my uk phone number so I can still contact people through WhatsApp with this number and when I come back still make use of it. I have heard that you have to send a text from it every so often to keep the number active so how would this work with being in these places. Would I be charged etc?

As well as this I want to change from a monthly contract to pay as you go as I won’t actually be using the contract at all so is the best option to pay of the remaining bill on the contract and move to pay as you go sim. Should I get this e sim if I plan to get physical sim when travelling.

 Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I’ve I’m struggling to get in contact with customer service on the live chat .