Esim

It's hard to say - look at your home based usage and extrapolate perhaps. Assuming no streaming media, I would have thought 10GB would be plenty. To some degree it depends on how much data each package contains.

"Posting pics on Facebook" is the wild card here. I'd think you could burn a lot of GB if you do a lot of that.

I don't do any posting of pics (or indeed anything else) on Facebook, and 20 GB per month works out well for me. I use mapping apps, download library books and podcasts, and internet surf.

Post your pictures when you have WiFi. Its all over the world. Stop and have a coffee and log-in.

Let us know how the ESim works out. I hear so many questions about using them, and ocassional gripe about using them that I am for now sticking to my TMobile account. Sure $50 a month for high speed, but for a simple minded old fart like me using it is a snap:

1. Turn on Phone
2. hmmm there is no 2

Keep in mind (and as Mr E points out), you will/should have daily & regular internet access at most hotels (or museums, etc). IOW, the GB you need on your phone will most likely be supplemented - to a very large degree depending on how you do things - by "free" data you get in other non-eSIM situations. If you make your daily posting process something where you post most stuff when you're back at the hotel and reviewing the day's photos, it should save your data plan GBs for regular and low data work like Google Maps, internet browsing, and most apps.

I was in Germany for 30 days in 2022, and bought a 10Gb eSIM from Airalo and it worked out fine. FWIW, I posted a lot of photos on my blog, but I always did it when I had wifi. I think you'd be fine with 10Gb for 30 days, but if not, you can always top it off (at least on Airalo and probably the others). It's an easy process. I know Airalo has a 10Gb 30 day eSIM for all of Europe.

Everyone is different.

My trips are usually 4-8 weeks. I have tracked my data use for a year or so and on average use 1.5 G/week. I don’t stream anything and try to have my WhatsApp or Messenger video calls on WiFi at my lodging. But otherwise I send photos, check FB, use Google Maps, research, etc. whenever I want to, just like at home. I usually buy an Airalo package for 30 days to start with, then top up. Remember, you can always add more data (top up) to your esim toward the end of your trip if you guessed wrong. If you buy too much, you just lose it at the end of your time.

I think you're confusing internet with wifi. Internet is what you access with your cell phone coverage. For example, when you're driving and can't get wifi in a cafe or your hotel, you access the internet through your cell phone. And that is what the eSIM does as well. It replaces your current cell phone SIM (which gives you access to the internet) with a digital SIM that gives you access in Europe.
Wifi, on the other hand, is a wireless technology that allows devices like cell phones and laptops and so on, to interface with the internet. it's a good idea to access wifi when you are in a cafe or hotel because you use less cell phone data that way.

I agree that 10GB is probably the sweet spot. You might get by with 5 GB, but if you need to top up, you'll probably spend more in total than just buying 10 GB would cost. Topping up is extremely easy on Airalo, though. You just go into the app, choose the top up package and pay for it.

Like the others, I don't do much that requires cellular data as I'm walking around other than use my (data-hog) mapping function, which includes a quick check of the ratings of nearby restaurants when I get hungry.

I take over 1000 photos a week but virtually never send them to anyone when I'm out and about. I'm worried about whether Google Fi would consider texts with attached photos to be data usage for which I pay a high rate of $10/GB (much more than an eSIM costs). I know the texts themselves are free.

I snap pics all the time on my iPhone. In the evening as I prepare for bed I upload them to my Instagram account. Closest friends can look at pics if they take the time to do so. For communication I use WhatsApp and/or general email. I’m on Verizon.

I simply make sure where I’m staying has strong WiFi.

Good replies here. With Tmobile, my wife and I each get 5 gb. high speed data /month in Germany. I've used 1 gb. in 2 weeks, she's used her 5 gb. in 1 1/2 weeks. Mostly, I think she watches more news, short video clips, online webcams. No photo uploading, no movies.

As mentioned, we try to do most of that in evening in hotel wifi, but it's been tough lately. As also mentioned "make sure hotel has good wifi". All our hotels say they have wifi BUT: In Rothenburg, it was city wide, strong signal, but VERY slow. In Mittenwald it was fast, but no signal in our room except near door. In Munich, very fast, strong signal, but connects sporadically, don't know why.

A great tip I got here on RS was to use Organic Maps app. Works great, download all the maps on wifi one time.

Also, I believe there are lots of iphone believers whose every photo is automatically uploaded to tha Apple "cloud". Gack! Don't let that happen. I've taken about 1200 photos this trip (I've edited, compressed and kept 300). Each photo starts as about 5 megabytes. So 1200 x 5 mb. = 6.0 gb. of photos that apple would happily be uploading for me. And that's not mentioning uploading videos! So think about the numbers and when to upload them.

Good topic! Different answers for everyone!

The previous advertisement said:

"esim is generally very expensive"

No, it's not very expensive. If your phone will work with esims, they are very affordable. Searching this forum for "Esim" would show many respectible, inexpensive sources of Esims, such as Airalo, etc... If your phone (like mine) does not support Esim, there are special sim cards which will allow an older phone to use Esims. The first one is esim.me, and another one is 5ber. You buy their programmable sim card, install their app, then you can download esims to your phone.

Airalo.com. Bone simple, reliable and cheap.

Here is as good an article as I have read on how much data you need when traveling. Sure they are selling something but the information is still good: https://esim.holafly.com/how-to/how-much-data-for-travel/#:~:text=The%20amount%20of%20data%20you,%2C%20streaming%20shows%2C%20and%20uploads.

What they messed up was mixing MB and GB. We buy in GB so the should have stated everything in GB to make the math easier.

They say Google Maps uses
5 MB to 10 MB per hour
70 MB to 140 MB per week at two hours per day (two hours a day is sort of lot isnt it? ... i mean on average, every day?)

is really

Google Maps 0.005GB to 0.01 GB per hour (so you would need to use it 500 hours to eat up 5GB?)
0.07 GB to 0.14 GB per week at two hours per day

So what else do you have to do without wifi? Receive email? Thats not more, probably less, than the maps unless you get lots of large attachments and you can set up your email to only to download the attachements if you so choose to.

If you upload you pictures and do your WhatsApp on the hotel or coffee shop Wifi, Its going to be pretty hard to use 10GB in a month of travel. Probalby hard to use 5GB.

Its going to be pretty hard to use 10GB in a month of travel. Probalby hard to use 5GB.

As I typically use at least 8 GB per month when I'm in Europe, obviously I disagree. And I don't post photos to Facebook or Instagram. I don't, however, use public wifi except in rare circumstances, as I'm somewhat security conscious.

Bottom line: everyone has different data usage patterns. That's why no single answer is valid for "how much data do I need?"

You should have read the article (said everyone is different) and what I wrote (wasnt about you).