I got my whole family on Mint Mobile and they have never looked back. Everything else is ridiculously priced compared to Mint.

If their plan works in your area absolute steal

As soon as I drive outside of city limits I lose all practical cell coverage. One of the main reasons I stick to Verizon

Verizon is really thin on the ground out West, their coverage just keeps shrinking as their LTEiRA partners shut down or get bought out by T-Mobile and AT&T.

Between Reno and Las Vegas it's pretty stark, huge holes in Verizon's coverage and a few 3G CDMA only towers, while AT&T has strong band 14 coverage, and T-Mobile has slightly better coverage than Verizon but also lets you roam onto AT&T.

Meanwhile in the San Juans the situation is dire on Verizon, with only one tower just on Orcas Island. AT&T has a handful of towerd, two on Orcas and then they force roam everyone onto T-Mobile who has dozens of local towers.

So long as you are on AT&T or T-Mobile with roaming you'll have the best coverage possible, but if your stuck on Verizon it seems your in for a rough ride these days.

I have a dual-SIM phone, maybe $250 at Best Buy.

Primary Mint SIM, secondary MobileX (Verizon) SIM.

Monthly cost $35.