If you are still new to international travel, you might consider buying a new SIM for your phone at the airport as you arrive in each country. You will likely receive a low-cost rate for calls and data to cover your needs.
If you are an experienced traveler, you may have perfected the SIM swap. You also know that sometimes you have a late or early flight, and the stores are closed. Then you scramble for WIFI and try to coordinate your plans.
But what if you could eliminate a physical purchase, and avoid physically changing out the SIM in your phone?
What are eSIMs?
When my wife and I launched our nomad life in 2022, we explored how to handle our phones while traveling worldwide. At that point, there were sparse answers.
Early in our research, we discovered eSIMs, and it was a game changer.
An eSIM is an embedded SIM card permanently connected to your phone’s motherboard. Unlike a traditional SIM, eSIMs are programmable inside your phone, and can be updated to work with different services without physically changing out a SIM card.
Said differently, installing a new eSIM service is more like installing an app. It is just performed through software on your phone and then the service works through your phone’s existing eSIM hardware.
Airalo: One service provider to rule them all.
When we started this research in 2022, there were limited options. The provider that stood out far above the rest for our needs was Airalo.
We needed a service that would let us travel to a new country, arrive at the airport or across a land border, and immediately have data service for that country without finding a phone store. There were a few other factors.
- We did not want to pay high fees for a global plan that covered every country.
- We might only be in some places for a week or two, and in others for more than one month.
- We expected to use less than 5GB of data per month in most cases, but we knew that could vary.
- We wanted to handle our data the same at home in the United States as we do anywhere else in the world.
And Airalo checked all of our boxes.
How do eSIM providers work?
Since an eSIM must be programmed with the needed SIM information, it is unsurprising that you install an app on your phone to manage your eSIM service. There are two main steps to getting started.
- Make sure your phone is eSIM compatible. If not, you will either need to go the traditional physical SIM card route, or you will need to upgrade your phone.
- Download the Airalo app to your iPhone or Android phone that is eSIM capable.
For my wife and I, our phones did not have eSIM capability. We decided to upgrade to Samsung Galaxy 22s back in 2022 to gain eSIM and access to Airalo. Now eSIM is a more common technology and is more likely to be available on your phone. But verify before you move ahead with plans to try Airalo.
Once you have verified your phone supports eSIMs, all the magic happens on the app.
What types of eSIM data service coverage is available?
Airalo supports eSIM service for more than 200 countries, so chances are good that your current or future destination is available.
You can choose from one of three plan categories: Local, Regional, or Global.
We have used both Local and Regional service, and I will give examples, but the general rule is that you will pay less for local service than regional service, and less for regional than global.
Local eSIMs – local indicates services for a specific country. If you plan to travel between different cities within one country, you would need one eSIM for your destination country to give you coverage.
Regional eSIMs – regional indicates a collection of countries that might be a continental area (i.e. Europe, Asia) or a logical collection of countries for the Airalo service (i.e. “Caribbean Islands”, “Middle East and North Africa”).
Global eSIMs – global indicates a collection of countries across the globe, but not every country with service available through Airalo. At the time of this writing, 124 countries are included in the Global plan.
What are the data and timeframe options?
Airalo has a nice breakdown of options with three options that work together.
Data – most local plans have options for anywhere from 1GB for a short time to 20GB for a longer timeframe. Regional and global plans can include anywhere from 1GB for a short time up to 20GB for a long timeframe.
Timeframe – usually the smaller the data, the shorter the timeframe. Most Local plans have increments of 7, 15, or 30 days. Regional plans vary drastically, so review the site for current details on the regional plan you are interested in. Global plans have 7, 15, 30, 60, 180, or 365 days.
Price – you pay a reasonable price for the combination of Data and Timeframe that you select, giving you a lot of flexibility and cost savings.
What has worked for us?
We have been full-time nomads, slow-traveling the world, since 2022. Through some trial and error, I will tell you what has worked for us. Your needs might be slightly different, but it is a starting point.
For most countries we visit, we stay between 28 and 35 days. We stayed as long as 5 months (just once) and as little as 2 days (also once).
We typically each get the local plan for the country we are in with 3GB of data for 30 days. We typically have some data left over after that time.
In our first few countries, we bought the 5GB for the 30-day plan but found that we usually used less than 3GB, so shifted toward 3GB for 30 days.
If we stay 35 days in a country, we top up our 30-day data with a 1GB-for-7-day plan to cover our final days in the country. To be clear, you can use the 30-day plan until it expires, and then activate the 7-day plan you already purchased to get your full value.
In some cases, we have used the Regional plan for a short time due to two or more country changes in less than 30 days. One recent example was going from Albania to Greece (for a quick 2 day stay) to Serbia. Once the 30-day European Region plan expires, we just buy a Serbia local plan for our remaining time in Serbia.
Because we expected to use more data than usual with heavy tourist activity away from WIFI, we bought 5GB for 30 days covering the region of Europe for just $20 per phone.
With the combination of short to long timeframes and small data increments, it is easy to get the best value for your money while still having full service.
How do we logistically change eSIMs?
The process can vary slightly between countries, but when you buy a new service from Airalo, instructions are provided for installing and activating.
I recommend buying and downloading the new eSIM before travel, using reliable WIFI. I also screenshot the Airalo instructions for setup in case there are any manual steps that I need to complete later when I do not have an internet connection (you can’t reach the instructions in Airalo if you are offline).
On our phones, Samsung Galaxy s22, we can have many eSIMs downloaded at once, but you will need to verify what your phone is capable of.
My current eSIM is turned on in my Android phone under Settings–>Connections–>SIM manager. I tend to rename the new destination eSIM as the country or region name of the plan for simplicity.
When we land in the new country, I go to SIM manager, turn off the old eSIM, turn on the new eSIM, and sometimes need to restart my phone. Then I start using data in my new location.
If I have any issues, I check the instructions for the few settings you can double-check. It has never taken me more than a few minutes to resolve.
Are there Data, Call, and Text plans?
Yes, some plans include all three of the coveted phone options. The Data/Call/Text plans are only available in the Global eSIM category, but you can get varying counts of GBs, call minutes, and number of texts over variable timeframes and different price points.
To give you just a sense of the cost, I will list the minimum and maximum plans available at this time.
MIN $15 – 124 countries, 1GB data, 10 call minutes, and 10 texts over 7 days.
MAX $89 – 124 countries, 20GB data, 200 call minutes, and 200 texts over 365 days.
We have other solutions for our calls and texts (which we will elaborate on soon), so we do not need the Data/Call/Text option. Still, it is nice to have it available if we ever need it.
And back home in the USA?
Unlike health insurance, going home to the USA is not a massive price difference from Europe for an Airalo data plan.
We pay (as of this time) only $11 for a 3GB 30-day plan, which is less than some of the European countries we travel through.
And if you want regional travel through Canada, USA, and Mexico, it is just $17 for a 3GB 30-day plan.
The bottom line is you are paying a reasonable price for a touchless process that is fairly simple.
Summary
No solution is perfect, but Airalo is about as close to perfect as it gets, at least for our needs.
Airalo is the option we recommend based on our nomadic life for mobile data plans during extended world travel.
May your travel plans be smooth, and your journey amazing!
* This post contains affiliate links. Clicking a link and purchasing may result in a small commission to the author, but you will not pay any more than usual on the Airalo site.
