Use An eSIM To Stay Connected When Travelling

We Moved To An eSIM To Stay Connected When Travelling

We travel plenty and use an eSIM to stay connected when travelling.  After trying many different options for getting internet connectivity when travelling, we were happy when we found the Saily eSIM by NordVPN.  This eSIM offered us great package options, good seamless internet service, competitive pricing and good customer service.  It made us converts!

Many Options For Internet Connectivity When Travelling

It was always tempting to just check out and stay offline when we travel.  But rarely did we have that option.  We needed connectivity to reach family, deal with any home issue and we do work on this blog as we travel.  So we have used many different ways to stay connected over the years.

We found pros and cons to the many options we tried for staying connected when we travelled internationally.  

1) Roaming On Home Cellular Services

The simplest way to get internet when travelling was to use our cell phones and home cellular data plans.  We could Pay-As-You-Go or buy International Roaming.   In Canada,  roaming services have a cost per day and are capped to a maximum charge.  But we still draw down on the cellular data capacity of our base cellular plan.  And pay your normal monthly cost on top of the roaming charge.  In Canada these roaming charges are prohibitive and something we never knowingly use! 

2) WiFi 

A great option was to look for WiFi when we travelled.  Hotels generally had good WiFi services as part of the room cost.  Our Elite status with Marriott Bonvoy includes high speed internet as a perk.

Free Wifi is available in so many places these days.  Often we will find a good cafe and enjoy a break while we go online.  We just made sure to use a VPN since these were often totally open networks.  And when the free WiFi spot was busy, the internet speeds were not great.

3) WiFi Hotspot

Early on our travels we purchased a WiFi hotspot.  We could buy data services for the hotspot for the different areas we visited.  There were caps on the bandwidth and not all locations had available service.

We travelled with our hotspot for many years until updated cellular services were no longer supported on our hotspot.  We never replaced the original hotspot with a newer model.

4) Local SIM Card

When we first started travelling, we purchased local SIM cards when we travelled.  At the time, most SIMs were specific to a country or sometimes even to a specific region serviced by the SIM vendor.  This worked well on early visits to Europe.  

The local SIM card required removing my home SIM and hoping I did not lose it before I got home.  Generally the SIMs were only valid for a single trip.  And as we moved around, we bought more and more single use SIMs.  We soon looked for another option.

5) Traditional International SIM

We looked for an International SIM that worked in multiple countries.  For many years we had great service with our KnowRoaming international SIM.  I had a SIM sticker that went on top of my home SIM so I never had to remove my SIM.  

Before we travelled, I downloaded the KnowRoaming profile and contacted the support desk for the profile settings and preferred cellular network for each city and country we visited.  While the SIM had an “auto” mode for connecting, I rarely found this worked.  Once I set up the profile, picked the cellular network and re-started my iPhone I generally got internet connectivity.  

In theory, our KnowRoaming international SIM also included telephone capability.  We had 2 phone numbers attached to the SIM.  But I must admit that we rarely ever got the phone capability to work. 

We used the  KnowRoaming international SIM for many years when we travelled.  Eventually we bought a second standalone KnowRoaming SIM for our second phone.  But over time, KnowRoaming introduced eSIMs and the traditional SIM service faltered.  So it was time to look at an eSIM to stay connected when travelling.

We Finally Moved To An eSIM To Stay Connected When Travelling

An eSIM is a digital SIM built into a device as software rather than as a physical card.  It meant we no longer had to install SIMs but just bought plans that loaded onto the eSIMs we purchased for our iPhones. eSIMs were specific to a vendor and plans were available from many major brands.  We found a wide range of plans the covered individual countries, multi-country regions and provided differing duration and data capacity.

The biggest downside we found with eSIMs was that they only provided data capability. Phone calls and traditional SMS texting was not supported. For phone calls we used other data services like Skype or FaceTime. And the Apple iPhone Messages app let me text using my email address without a phone number. When travelling, if I needed an SMS verification code sent to my home number (e.g. for banking) I needed to turn on my home cellphone.

Our first eSIM test was with KnowRoaming.  We had experience with their support model and how they worked.  We remained frustrated with the need to often manually set up the profile and preferred vendor in each location.

On our five week visit to Sicily, we were excited when we learned that Holafly had a European region eSIM that also included phone service.  We contacted them initially to get the preferred cellular service for the regions we visited.  And sadly never got the phone or texting capability to work flawlessly.   On our great African adventure, we tried Holafly again.  Our African region SIM did not cover Zimbabwe so we needed to purchase two African packages.  While we had generally great internet coverage in South Africa, we got zero coverage in Zambia and Zimbabwe.  We got no answers or compensation for those total failures.

We used NordVPN as our VPN service for travelling for years.  It was a great success and kept our online services private and safe.  So we were quite excited when NordVPN introduced its Saily eSIM service as a potential eSIM to stay connected when travelling. 

Our Great Experience With Saily eSIMs

When we first read about the Saily eSIM, we tried it on a road trip through Michigan.  Our second trial was on our river cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam.  Our final trial was during our winter trip to Phoenix.   After several trials, we learned about the Saily service and were convinced that theSaily eSIM would be our eSIM to stay connected when travelling.  

1) Great Flexibility In An eSIM To Stay Connected When Travelling

In the US, we purchased eSIM packages for the one country in different durations and with different capacities.  On our river cruise with Tauck, we needed an eSIM that covered multiple countries.  We purchased a 30 day European region Saily eSIM that covered our cruise through Hungary, Austria, Germany and into Amsterdam.  It also covered us for extended stays in Belgium and then on our stay near Peniche in Portugal.  When we used up the capacity on one trip before the time expired, it was easy to add more capacity to the existing Saily eSIM.

2) Competitive Pricing

We researched many different eSIM options and the pricing for plans.  We found the Saily eSIM to be price competitive for all the different eSIM plans we purchased.  

3) eSIM To Stay Connected Seamlessly

Probably the thing I hated most about other options for connectivity was having to manually set up profiles and select Network providers every time we changed locations.  Sometimes it took more than one re-boot of my iPhone to get connected.

The Saily eSIM was totally seamless as we moved from country to country on our river cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam.  Not once did we need to contact customer support to get information to manually set our eSIM up.

4) Good Internet Service

Our trials to-date have been in generally well-populated areas.  So we expected no issue with getting good internet service.  And we were not disappointed in our Saily eSIM.  Our cruise for the Northern Lights will test the connectivity in Northern Norway.  

We have looked to use our iPhone as a hotspot when we needed to connect more than one device.  We found that the Saily eSIM like most others were limited in hotspot capability depending on the local service provider.  But that was expected.

5) Responsive Customer Service

Responsive customer service was generally not an issue with previous options we used for International connectivity.  As long as we had WiFi, emails to customer service were responded to quickly and thoroughly.  So far we have had little need to contact customer service for our Saily eSIM.  But when we had a quick question, we got the answer we needed.  

We rarely promote brands in our blog posts.  But when we find offerings that would benefit our readers, we love to share.  If you want to try the Saily eSIM, we even have a promotion code for you to save on purchases. 

Click on the image below to buy a Saily eSIM. We get a very small compensation for your purchase and thank you for using this link. If you enter the promotion code RETIREDANDTRAVELLING5 you will get a 5% savings on your package costs.

We hope you are as successful with the Saily eSIM to stay connected when travelling.

Special Considerations For Cruising

We have an upcoming trip cruising in Norway for the Northern Lights.  And we know that staying connected may be a bit more challenging on this trip.

We learned the hard way about ensuring our cell phones stayed on Airplane Mode when we were at sea. Once we thought we had cellular service off as we cruised from Miami to Key West.  After accruing a $200 charge, the cell company finally texted me to say they had turned off my data access.  Accessing satellite services at sea will cost a lot on your home cell phone plan.

Luckily the WiFi-based internet on cruise ships has gotten better over the years.  The introduction of Starlink on most of the cruise lines has helped.  But connectivity on cruise ships is still quite limited.  Basic internet was often included with our cruising packages.  But there were often limits on what we could do with a basic package.  Generally simple email and some limited social media posting can be done.  But cloud connectivity, video conferencing or media streaming may only be supported when we bought expensive daily advanced Internet packages.  And VPN access was often blocked.  Often the cruise lines supported only one device at a time being connected.

Cruise ships needed good access to satellite services to provide internet.  In many parts of the world this was not a problem on most days.  But really bad weather can interfere with satellite signals.  When we headed deep south to cruise to Antarctica, we knew that there would be many days with little or no internet service.  Similarly, when we cruised north of the Arctic circle the first time we often lost connectivity.  So planning for our cruising trip for Northern Lights meant we had to consider how to maintain internet connectivity.

If we wanted better bandwidth on the cruise ship internet, we got up early in the morning before the ship was stirring.  The other option we found was to use the internet on days or times when we were onboard while other’s went off on excursions.  This meant we mostly competed with staff for internet bandwidth.

When we planned our trip, we knew we wanted an eSIM to stay connected when travelling on our Northern Lights adventure.  Both David and I purchased European region Saily eSIMs.  While we may have internet challenges onboard our Viking cruise ship, we believe we will be well covered when we stop in ports through Norway.  And we know the European region eSIM will cover us for stops in both Amsterdam and London as well.  

We Are Happy With Our eSIM To Stay Connected When Travelling

We learned many things as we travelled for almost 6 months every year.  While we were tempted to disconnect and immerse ourselves in the local environment when we travelled, we knew we needed good internet connectivity.  Over the years we tried many different options to stay connected.  And were happy we finally moved to an eSIM to stay connected when travelling.

After our experience with other options, we knew what we looked for in a connectivity solution.  And were happy when we found the Saily eSIM.  Our experience to-date has made us a repeat buyer of new Saily ESIM plans as we move around the world.

Have you you used an eSIM to stay connected when travelling?  Have you had great success with Saily ESIM too?

Note:  We do receive a small credit if you purchase the Saily eSIM through the link on this blog.  All opinions are mine and based on total satisfaction with our Saily eSIM.

Copyright Notice: All material on this travel blog site is the sole property of RetiredAndTravelling.  This includes blog posts, pages, design and all photos (whether watermarked or not). Any use of materials from this site without express written consent will be considered copyright infringement.