Wow, thank you so much. Now I just need to find a computer to transfer all my iTunes and backups to from my old pc that won't even update iTunes
Applejuiced is spot on. I just went through this with an equally "clueless" friend, who is currently in Italy for the next 3 weeks. He paid an unlock service to unlock his AT&T iP5 for around $5. He then got to Italy, and bought a local SIM card there about 30 Euros, which gave him 5GB of data, and I think around 1000 mins/1000 txt for the month. However, here's the one caveat you need to remember with this approach. You WILL NOT be using your US phone number this way. You will instead be using an Italian phone number (or in your case, UK). So, if people call/text your US phone number, it will not ring/send on to your phone, as the SIM chip for that US phone number is no longer in your phone. However, there are additional things you can do to help alleviate part of that issue.
What we did for my friend is we got him a Google Voice phone number, and then downloaded the TapTalk app to link to the Google Voice number. Then, before he got on the plane, he forwarded his AT&T phone to the Google Voice number. In doing that, any calls to his AT&T number will ring the Google Voice number, and it will ring on his phone in Italy through the TapTalk app (not the regular iPhone dialer), as the TapTalk app connects to Google Voice over the data connection (doesn't matter whether that's WiFi or Cell Data).
One issue is that any texts to his AT&T number do not get forwarded, and may likely be lost during that time period. Might be best to ask friend/family to call/text you directly on your Google Voice number for that period, and then you get both through TapTalk.
Hope this helps.
