Best travel sim and cheap esim for roaming
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It’s hard to imagine not having access to the internet while travelling these days.
I’ve been able to hop on video calls from a cruise ship in the Arctic Circle and work like I’m in my home office while on a transcontinental flight.
But even though fast and reliable internet has become the norm in many corners of the world, it remains surprisingly expensive.
At least, it’s expensive if you don’t make the effort to find a cheaper alternative.
Fortunately there are plenty of travel sims and esims for roaming that will let you stay connected like you’re at home for a fraction of the normal price.
How to choose the best roaming plan for you
Let me start off by saying that there’s no perfect, one-size-fits-all sim or esim.
The best option for you will depend on:
- How long you’re away for
- What your home mobile plan includes
- Where you’re travelling to
- What your usage habits are
And then of course there are things like price and network coverage to consider.
How long is your trip?
On average, I’m away from home for about six months of each year.
While most of my work trips are long haul, I’ll also do a handful of short haul trips; each trip can last anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.
So when deciding on the roaming plan to go for, I always start by thinking about the length of the trip.
Less than a week
For a trip that’s less than a week long, I don’t normally bother getting a roaming plan.
I’m not an avid social media user and I find that hopping on the wifi at hotels, restaurants, museums and other public spaces is enough for basic navigation and staying connected.
Besides, most of these shorter trips are in Europe, which is covered by my home mobile plan (see below).
The only exception is if I’m going somewhere more obscure and wifi is not readily available.
A week to two weeks
For trips lasting one to two weeks, I’ll usually buy an esim for roaming.
These are always cheaper than the roaming bolt-on available through my home mobile plan and I can pay for just the days I need rather than having to buy a monthly plan.
My go-to provider in the past has always been Airalo*.
It has country-specific, regional and global esim plans for anywhere between three to 30 days, and you get a small cashback to your account every time you buy a new plan.
For the places I was visiting, I found it was cheaper than its main competitor, Holafly*.
Since then, I’ve found the esims available through Trip.com* are even cheaper and you get cashback on top as well.
It’s not a hard and fast rule though – sometimes Airalo still works out cheaper than Trip.com so I’ll always price check both.
Other ones you can try are Saily* and Nomad* although I haven’t used them myself.
Three weeks or longer
For trips where I’m in the same country for three weeks or longer, I’ll usually buy a local sim.
I’m talking about the ones geared towards residents rather than for tourists.
These can work out a lot cheaper than an esim for roaming and give me the option to make calls if I need to.
In Thailand for example, the AIS network has 30-day unlimited data plans geared towards tourists that sell for around £30 at airports.
But by going into an AIS store, I was able to get a sim geared towards residents after registering my passport.
For my five-week stay, I paid just £2 for the data I used.
A local sim isn’t always cheaper though.
In the US, I found local sims were as expensive if not more so than an esim for roaming.
Your home mobile plan inclusions
For the avoidance of doubt, your home mobile plan is the one you use in your own country.
I’ve been using ID Mobile* as my UK mobile network provider for years.
It’s nearly always the cheapest network around and it operates a data rollover policy, which means even on the most basic plan I’ve never run out of data.
But the most important factor is that it offers free roaming in European Economic Area (EEA) countries*, which means I don’t need to switch plans or pay extra to roam when visiting the 30 member countries (more below).
Not every UK network provider offers free EEA roaming after Brexit though (more below).
So if you travel a lot then a good place to start is to switch your home mobile plan to a provider that offers free EEA roaming as standard.
It’s also worth checking whether your free roaming allowance includes overseas territories such as Guadeloupe in the Caribbean and Reunion in the Indian Ocean as not all of them do.
Where are you going?
If you have a mobile plan that includes free roaming in the EEA then you’re already saving money.
But what if you’re visiting a European country that’s not in the EEA?
Well, some networks do offer free coverage for some of those countries.
ID Mobile, for example, offers free roaming in Belarus and Macedonia even though they’re not in the EEA.
That’s why it’s important to check the list of countries that are covered before you take out a plan.
But there are some obvious destinations that aren’t covered under EEA roaming plans, like Switzerland.
In this case, you’ll need to decide whether it’s worth getting a data plan for your trip.
I find Europe is pretty well covered by free wifi so I never feel the need to get a roaming package.
Outside of Europe, I will usually get an esim for roaming or a local sim depending on the length of my trip.
Even then I’d only get a roaming plan if the trip is longer than a week or if I need to do significant navigation on my own.
Your usage habits
People usually spend more on their mobile phone bill than they need to because they overestimate how much they use.
So while it’s good to look for a plan that offers value for money, there’s no point in choosing the more expensive option if you don’t need it.
The final thing to think about when choosing your plan, then, is your usage habits.
Do you need to make calls or will a data-only plan be just fine?
Will you be on your phone a lot navigating and posting to social media?
Do you need to use your phone as a hotspot and tether other devices to it?
If you just need data for basic browsing or navigation, a couple of gigabytes of data will be plenty for a couple of weeks.
For a phone that runs a lot of apps, your data usage will probably be on the higher end of that.
And for regular social media use or tethering, you’ll want a data package in the double digits.
Best travel sim and esim for roaming
As I said earlier, there’s no one-size-fits-all sim or esim plan – it depends on your needs.
That said, these are the tried and tested options that worked for me.
Best travel sim
For me, ID Mobile* is the best option because it’s cheap, offers good value for money and has great coverage in the UK and in Europe.
But actually, there are lots of alternatives in the UK that offer similar packages for around the same price.
The ones I’ve included below can all be cancelled after the first 30 days and start from as little as £5 a month.
Do check the destinations covered under their free roaming policy as it varies a lot.
Also consider the fair usage policy, which puts a cap on the amount of data you can use while roaming.
- Lebara* – from £5 a month for 5GB data and 1,000 UK minutes and 1,000 texts, plus 100 international minutes. Roaming in 36 destinations including EEA countries as well as India. Monthly roaming cap of 30GB data.
- ID Mobile* – £6 a month for 4GB data and unlimited UK minutes and texts – but it’s £6 a month for 20GB data and unlimited UK minutes and texts if you buy it from its parent company, Carphone Warehouse*. Roaming in 50 destinations including EEA countries. Monthly roaming cap of 30GB data.
- Smarty – £6 a month for 5GB data and unlimited minutes and texts. Can cancel after the first 30 days. Roaming in 44 destinations including EEA countries. Monthly roaming cap of 12GB data.
- giffgaff* – £6 a month for 2GB data and unlimited minutes and texts. Roaming in 37 destinations including EEA countries. Monthly roaming cap of 5GB data.
Best esim for roaming
When it comes to esims for roaming, the best options I’ve found are the ones available through Trip.com* simply because they’re often the cheapest.
They’re supplied by various different providers, and cover specific countries as well as regions, but all of the ones I’ve used so far have worked great.
I would still recommend Airalo* as an alternative.
Although I haven’t used it since I realised how much cheaper esims are on Trip.com, I wouldn’t hesitate to return for a good deal.
It’s also worth checking Lebara. Sometimes its roaming add ons* can be surprisingly good value.
Sim or esim?
Does it matter whether you go for a sim or esim? Most of the time no, because how much you pay and the level of coverage is determined by the plan you’re on.
However, there are a few reasons for choosing one or the other.
You see, while every mobile phone is designed to accept physical sim cards, not every phone will support an esim.
So if you have a dumb phone or a smartphone that doesn’t support esims then you’re stuck with mobile plans that require a physical sim.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that esims are restricted in some destinations, such as Turkey and the UAE.
In most cases you can use your esim plan as normal if you purchase and install it onto your device before you enter your intended destinations.
In some cases, though, you may not be able to use your esim plan at all.
You should also think about whether you need to make calls as well as use data.
While all physical sim cards come with a mobile phone number, and have the ability to make calls, most esims are data-only.
Usually you have to pay extra for the ability to make and receive calls.
How do esims work?
You may well be wondering how esims work and why they’re compatible with some phones and not others.
It’s helpful to start with a physical sim card here.
When you insert a physical sim card into your device, it connects to the mobile network your plan is on.
Usually it’ll download a data pack that will configure your phone to the network.
On an esim-enabled smartphone, there’s a built-in chip that works in the same way.
So when you scan a QR code or follow a link to download your esim, all of the data goes onto this chip.
And then when you go through the installation process, your phone will be configured to the network that your esim plan belongs to.
A physical sim and an esim are not mutually exclusive – a physical sim can sometimes be converted into an esim but whether this is possible depends on the network provider.
Why is there free roaming in the EU and EEA?
If you used your mobile phone while abroad a decade ago, you would have found a hideous phone bill when you got home.
But on 15 June 2017, everything changed for countries in the EEA.
An EU law on roaming charges – Regulation (EU) 2012/531 – came into effect, establishing what’s now known as the “Roam Like At Home” scheme.
It banned roaming charges between EEA countries, so when you travelled from one member state to another, your EEA-based network won’t charge you more than what you’d pay at home.
As many people have included minutes, texts and data, roaming effectively became free.
The scheme was only meant to last for five years, but it was extended to 2032 under a new piece of legislation, Regulation (EU) 2022/612.
The law covers all 30 EEA countries, which includes all 27 EU members (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden), plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
Albania, Moldova, Montenegro and Ukraine have all established separate agreements with the EU to implement the Roam Like At Home legislation from 2026.
It means if you have an EEA-based mobile plan, you’ll be able to roam for free in these four countries even though they’re not part of the EEA.
These agreements may not extend to UK networks because of Brexit.
How Brexit changed roaming for the UK
Back when the UK was an EU member, the Roam Like At Home legislation also applied to UK mobile network providers.
Unlike EU Regulation 261/2004, which protects air passenger rights in the event of delayed or cancelled flights, the Roam Like At Home legislation was not adopted into UK law after Brexit.
UK mobile network providers, then, were free to reintroduce roaming fees. And all four main providers – EE, O2, Vodafone, and Three – have done so in some way or other in the years since.
The mobile network providers that have kept free EEA roaming are doing so voluntarily.
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