Remember when you had to buy a local SIM card in every new country?

I was in a cafe in Chiang Mai last week and heard a guy tell his friend he just uses his home plan's roaming now. It made me think back to 2015, when I'd spend my first day in a new city hunting for a specific telecom shop to get a 30-day data plan. Now it's all eSIMs and global passes. Is that extra cost worth the time you save, or do you still go local?

4 comments

4 Comments

davidw101mo ago

Honestly I was the guy who would always hunt for the local deal. I thought paying for roaming was for suckers. But last trip I got an eSIM online before I even landed and it just worked. That first day of vacation used to be wasted, now I'm just... on vacation. The extra twenty bucks or whatever feels like buying my time back.

davis.olivia1mo ago

Honestly the eSIM game changed everything for short trips under two weeks. For anything longer than that, hunting down a local SIM still saves a ton of money. That first day hunt felt like a chore, but you always ended up in some weird part of town you'd never see otherwise. What's your usual trip length?

mila2781mo ago

That first day was never really wasted though, it was part of the trip. I'd still grab a local SIM, @davidw10. The global passes are fine but the data limits are a joke.

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fiona_kim974d ago

Wait, but @mila278, what if your flight lands at night?