Here is How to Get Travel SIM When Traveling Abroad

When it comes to traveling abroad getting a properly working mobile connection is a crucial thing. Especially when you are traveling abroad. But there are many problems you may face when traveling abroad and getting a mobile SIM. You don’t know which mobile carrier to choose? which mobile carrier is having the best connection? Which is cheaper? Which mobile career works best with tourist SIM plans. What you can do is do some googling and try to find the information. Other than that what you can do is you can get some information about travel SIMs if you have some friends in the country that you are planning to visit.

But the information that you may find by just googling might be less and might not be sufficient. I also felt the same when I was looking for travel sim options when I was planning to travel to Malaysia. Different mobile carriers offer different packages and they are priced in different price ranges depending on the number of days that you are planning to use the package. But I was not convinced about the information that I got.

I had some problems with regards to using multiple sim cards on my mobile. I was using Google Pixel 4a and it allows only one physical sim card. But can use multiple eSIM cards. So If I get a physical SIM card after landing in Malaysia then I will have to remove my already using local physical SIM which I had enabled roaming. But that was not an option because I still needed to receive all the messages, especially OTP numbers which are coming to my local SIM number. So using a physical sim was not an option and I had to look for eSIM. As I mentioned there is less information available regarding the SIM packages on the internet. So you finding information about eSIMs was even harder.

Luckily I got to know about Airalo.

Airalo — https://ref.airalo.com/yQgj

I came across Airalo through a google search. Since I had not heard it, I was also not sure about what it is and whether it’s a legit thing. Then I did some research on it and found that Airalo is legit and has good reviews. Airalo is a leading eSIM provider in the world which provides eSIM access for 190+ countries.

“Airalo is the world’s first eSIM store that solves the pain of high roaming bills by giving you access to 190+ eSIMs (digital SIM cards) globally at affordable prices.”

So I thought to give it a try for Airalo. After signup, I could see different options that I can select from regarding the eSIM that I needed. There were the following options to select from.

• Global eSIM — Single eSIM to be able to use across many countries all around the world
• Regional eSIM — Single eSIM to be used in a region
• Local eSIM — Single eSIM specific to a country

Depending on the eSIM type that you select the price you will have to pay to get the eSIM changes. Global eSIMs are priced higher than the other two. You can understand why it is. Because once you purchase an international eSIM you can use it in any country and it will automatically connect to different mobile carriers when you visit each country. That is one single eSIM for all countries.

In the above image, you can see that if you buy a global eSIM it will work in 87 countries. Also, you can see that the price varies for each package depending on the validity period and the amount of GB that you needed. If you want to see more information about the package you can click on the package and you will be able to see additional information below.

Also once you purchase the package if the data limit exceeds you can always do a top-up for the eSIM as long as eSIM expires. There are different top-up packages available as well. If you want to see which mobile carriers the package works with for this eSIM, you can click on the “Check Available Networks” section and see the below.

Compared to that Regional eSIMs are cheaper. If you buy a regional eSIM you can use it in multiple countries in the same region that is specified in the package.

The last one is Local eSIM. This is specific to one country. You can select which country you are going to visit and select a package from there. This is the cheapest one since it will be working specifically for one country.

In my case, I was traveling to Malaysia with my wife. Since Airalo was new to me and since I had doubts about whether it will work I did purchase one eSIM only. I was planning to see the available packages in Malaysia after going there and purchasing one from there since my wife’s phone supports two physical SIMs. Also, I wanted to have a SIM that would allow us to make some calls just in case as well. Because Airalo is a data-only SIM.

Once you select the eSIM type and the package you want you can do the payment and get the eSIM. In my case, I purchased a local eSIM for Malaysia which offered me 30 days of validity as well as 5GB of data. Once I do the payment I did install Airalo mobile application on the phone as well. After doing the payment, the app showed me a QR code to be scanned and you can follow the same steps that you follow when installing an eSIM. The mobile app provides additional information on how to install the eSIM. If you are not familiar with installing eSIMs you can follow that guide as well.

So that’s enough about getting started and how to select package and all. You can do it without any hassle. It’s time for me to speak about my experience using Airalo. To be honest it was really smooth experience. I had installed Airalo eSIM before I left for Malaysia. Once I landed I did the configuration changes on my phone as it is mentioned in the installation guide and Voila!! that’s it. I was connected to the “Maxis” Mobile carrier when I landed in Malaysia. Also throughout the time period that I stayed in Malaysia, I didn’t experience any connection problems at all. I was able to connect to the internet as I expected and the speed was also good enough for me. I can give a 5 out of 5 rating for Airalo if I consider my experience. As I mentioned before I was planning to buy a physical SIM which allows data as well as calls from Malaysia for my wife’s phone. When we went to a couple of stores we experienced different mobile carriers have different packages and they are priced in different ranges. So we bought a SIM card with 1GB of data and some additional calls. I had to spend RM 25 for that package which is like $6. There were 2GB available in the SIM when we checked and once 1GB finished we had the real pain. The remaining 1GB was really slow internet with less bandwidth. It not even loading a web page. So we were in trouble and we looked to top up that SIM but top-up was only available for RM35 which is around $8. That was costly. So I decided to go for Airalo for my wife’s phone as well and bought a second eSIM for my wife’s phone.

So comparing all the experiences that my and wife had it was really smooth and the connections were really good enough for us. This is just our experience and you may have some different experiences with Airalo. But from my experience, I would recommend Airalo to anyone and I will definitely use it when I visit another country.

Hope this information provided here is useful for you when deciding to buy an eSIM when traveling abroad next time. Please do provide your feedback and comments as well. We would love to hear those. If you do wish to get an Airalo connection you can use the following link.

Airalo — https://ref.airalo.com/yQgj