Travel Sims

On our first few overseas trips, we decided we didn’t need a local sim. We would just wifi surf between the hotels and occasional malls. It’s not as though we had people to call, or a social media addiction.

On one trip to the States, we prepurchased a sim and had it sent to us before we left home.

In other countries, we streamlined the process, and picked up a sim on arrival. Much simpler. There are often really good deals. I once picked up a sim in Sydney that cost about $2/day, repurchased every day. Perfect if you’re only there for a few days, which is often the case for us. There is a data limit, but because it renews daily, it is effectively unlimited. Unless you want to download the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Every day.

But every country required a new sim. We learned that lesson in Vancouver. I told this story at the time, but in essence, Sarah stepped onto a train before me, and the door closed in front of me. What we hadn’t realised is that Canada doesn’t regard themselves as Amrikan. That means that an Amrikan sim stops working when you cross the border.

Best results when buying a new sim is to let the person selling it install and set it up on your phone. That way, you walk out of the airport with a functional phone. 

eSIMs have had fairly a slow adoption, but they are almost ubiquitous by now. 

There are lots of providers, but I have yet to see them advertised at the arrivals shops, and certainly not with those short-life tourist plans. 

Just segwaying for a moment… There is a staff travel app, where you can find loadings for prospective flights you want to take. Each request costs one point. You can earn points by answering requests for loadings on your airline. I have quite a tally, and someone in Christchurch who shall remain nameless has built up quite the addiction. 

Anyway, the app, unsurprisingly called StaffTraveller, has a companion eSIM product. It operates completely differently from any other package I’ve found. 

First, it’s data only. No issue for me, but may be to some. 

Second, it works in about 90% of the countries in the world, so gone are the days of buying a new sim or eSIM every airport. Unfortunately, one country on that very short 10% list is Samoa. So it didn’t work for the few days we were there.

Finally, and possibly as a result of the multi-country nature mentioned above, the focus is on data use rather than days or weeks. 

When you buy a package, you are paying for data.

You will notice in the small print that it is valid for 365 days. That’s right, you can use it for a year. 

Roll-over isn’t a thing, because people use up their data before the year is up. If not you bought a package that was too big for your usage.

If you need more data, buy another package and it will kick off when the last one goes dry.

I bought a 10G package in April this year, and I’m just over half way through it. I probably won’t need to top up before we get home.

So USD38 for this trip is an amazing deal. Imagine spending that and doing a handful of countries within 12 months. As long as it’s not Samoa🤷‍♂️