eSim for Multi-Country trip

Can't help with ESIM but TMobile is flawless in tgese and cheap under most circumstances.

I have used Airalo in all those countries ( but I have also used it in Spain 2 or 3 times without a problem). I usually buy the regional eSIM for Europe when I am going to more than one country.

I've decided to use Bcengi this year since--like you--I'm going to quite a few different countries. Bcengi's eSIM works in most countries and is usually less expensive, per GB, than Airalo. Rates do vary by country, so it's important to check the price list before committing. I scanned the entire worldwide list, and I remember seeing a few places that seemed painfully expensive.

In addition to the (probable) lower cost per GB of data, Bcengi has the advantage of providing portable data. When you cross a border, you just keep using the same eSIM. You don't have to guess how much data you will use in each country and then, if you've underestimated, buy another one-week eSIM to get through your last day or two. You add more money to your Bcengi account as necessary.

I'm using the Bcengi eSIM at home in Washington DC, where it is doing very well. That's obviously not the same thing as bouncing around Europe. I've been happy with Airalo's coverage in the past, but it has not been perfect. Nor was Google Fi on the occasions when Airalo seemed to be choking and I briefly switched back to Fi. Honestly, I think sometimes the problem is the local carrier with whom the eSIM company has contracted. And there are places like the narrow alleys in Venice with 4- story buildings on both sides that seem to present physical challenges.

I usually use Nomad and it has worked well for me. They have single country and regional plans. Check the Europe plans and see if an option includes all your countries. One eSim that picks up the local cellular network of each country. If you click on the country and details, you can see which carrier Nomad partners with in that respective country. Sometimes it's just one or a couple.

If you download the app on phone and buy thru there, the activation is pretty straight forward. I know you can top it off if you are running low on data, and when doing so will let you know check how many extra days of validity it will add.

I will buy the Europe plan later this year. I used the "Nordic" regional for when I visited Scandinavia as it included all my countries.

I will check out Nomad and Bicengi. But the note about sometimes the problem just being the local carrier has value.

I am currently traveling with 2 friends: me on my home ATT cell data, one friend on the same, and one using an Airalo plan. Last night when we came out of the Globe in London, neither me nor the friend with Airalo had any coverage. The third friend using the same method as me did. I was able to turn my phone off, then back on, and have coverage - but it was odd.

And we have problems here in the city canyons and in the ancient buildings with 4 foot thick walls.

In Texas my television service was 5G, when I asked about that here, I didn't think the laughter would stop.

I am making the same trip to the same countries, plus Slovakia, in May and I plan to use Roamless for the first time. Roamless is pay-as-you-go. In roamless, a person deposits money to purchase "flex credits". The flex credits never expire until you actually use them.

For Europe, Roamless charges $2.45 per GB. I usually use about 5-10 GB for a 3 week trip. Based upon my usage, this should work out much cheaper for me than buying a fixed amount of data which usually expires (wasted) after 30 days.

Another benefit of Roamless is that I can make in-app telephone calls to anywhere in the world. Being able to make a phone call within Europe $0.04/minute (e.g. calling hotel or restaurants etc.) or back home to Canada $0.06/minute (e.g. family, friends, bank etc.) is very valuable to me. I can even "verify" my cell phone number in Roamless for free so that when I make the call, it appears to come from my cell phone number. Very few travel esims have a telephone calling feature. One exception is Orange Holiday.

Please note that people phoning to my cell phone number will not work in Roamless. My workaround is to set up a free TextNow number and to call forward my cell phone number to TextNow which can take calls anywhere in the world.

Also, please note that you cannot text to or from Roamless (e.g. no 2FA) unless you pay extra and subscribe for one of Roamless telephone numbers. But this is always a limitation for any travel esim.

Bcengi and Jetogo are similar pay as you go Esims and are cheaper than Roamless. However, neither Bcengi nor Jetogo have the ability to make phone calls like Roamless. Also, I have read and I can tell that the Roamless app is excellent and works very well.

Roamless has a promotion where you could get 3 buckets of 3GB data each for 3 groups of 25 countries each for free. Those three buckets cover the five countries that I will be visiting in May and are valid for 6 months. I expect that I may not have to pay anything for my trip. The promotion codes were ROAM25, ROAM50 and ROAM75. Hopefully, those codes are still valid for you.

In addition, if you use a referral code, you can get an additional $5 of flex credit when you sign up and make your first purchase of $5 flex credit. If you need a referral code, please feel free to private message me.

I cannot personally vouch for roamless, until after my May trip. However, I have read a lot of positive reviews in Reddit and I have a lot of confidence that it will work out for me. YMMV.

Good luck.

Roamless is working very well here in Ireland. I have a Roamless esim as a data backup to the tmobile sim in my Samsung phone. And I have Roamless and Bcengi esims in my cheap tablet. All give good signals almost everywhere. Almost always 5g in my Samsung.

I was looking into this, and I'm thinking of going with Bcengi. In fact, I will probably start it at home here and then take it with me when I go to Scandinavia in July.

I found this helpful comparison chart on Reddit that compares all the pay-as-you-go eSIM plans, costs, and rules. It's regularly updated, and it has some good info in it. For what it's worth, Bcengi has the lowest cost of all the plans listed there.
https://www.reddit.com/r/eSIMs/comments/1poheig/payasyougo_esims_compared_8_providers_with_pergb/

Honestly, I think sometimes the problem is the local carrier with whom the eSIM company has contracted.

I had that happen last year when I was in London. I had the hardest time getting service for about 50% of the time I was there. It was so frustrating to be standing in the middle of a London street, watching people all around me using their cell phones but I'm getting nothing. My grandson, who was with me and had a phone with the same T-Mobile plan, had no problem. I'm not sure why that happens, but that's another reason why I'm thinking I might get a PAYG e-SIM for my next trip. Plus, of course, it will supplement the T-Mobile international plan that I usually use.

The European SIM and ESIM are wonderful ideas. Just be sure you have absolutely no need to two factor authentication (2FA). That’s the code number the bank or the credit card company or the other sensitive accounts send to you in the form of a text so that you can log into your account or approve a payment. Cause if you don’t have your regular phone number you aren’t going to get the text and you aren’t going to be able to approve that payment or cancel that credit card or … whatever.

Then you need to make sure the banks and all of your family members have your ESIM phone number. So, when the pipe breaks in your home they can contact you or if there is some sort of bank fraud you can be told what to do or have explained why your card no longer works for you. Or little Billy ran off with the neighbor’s daughter or … You don’t want to be traveling dark so make sure you have a contact Plan B in place.

Are your state and federal documents (drivers license, registrations, taxes, etc.; and Medicare up to date, cause maybe you can’t log into the accounts unless you have a US SIM card. So make sure that’s all pre taken care of.

Then with that stuff out of the way, enjoy the savings of the ESIM. They can be great deals. I am certain that my US TMobile account is costing me $20 a month more than if I had a good ESIM (and took care of all the issues above). Someday I will change.

As far as coverage, it's not the esim provider, it's what network or networks they contract with. Here in Ireland, Roamless and Bcengi both use "Three". Which is everywhere.

Other problem lots of folks have is really complicated. My cheap ($68) TCL tablet has worked fine with both esims, but now, in Galway, I have nothing. It's because the cheap U.S. tablet doesn't have hardware to receive many cellphone bands used here in Europe. And it doesn't do 5g. It works fine in U.S. My regular Samsung S24, and my old S9 both work with those same esims.

So, you want to have a newer phone, or even an older one that's an international model. And you want 5g.

And there are settings. Make sure roaming is enabled, and 5g. And usually, set "Network operators" to "Select automatically".

@Mr. É
Usually, you don't get a new number with eSIM. It is used as a data bank. I always keep my regular phone number and can still receive text messages, it just uses cellular data from the eSIM. At least that's how it works for me. I also enable call over wifi on my device. I retain my regular phone number.
But all my bank accts have both text message and email for MFA.
When I am abroad using Nomad eSIM, I still get alert notifications by text for my region, as well as confirmation texts for doctor appts. Heck, I even got a call in the middle of the night in Norway from our work IT provider who didn't know I was on vacation! So I have no concerns about not being reached when using eSIM.

Then you got it covered.

My regular service is with Google Fi, which doesn't charge for international texting. Inbound texts come through automatically. I have to fiddle with a setting to send outbound texts via the Google Fi SIM when I have an eSIM installed and set to be the priority SIM. I hope I now have it figured out so I only need to set that up one time and it sticks. Time will tell.

I’d go with a regional Europe eSIM rather than buying separate ones for each country on that route. The biggest thing I’d check is not just the price per GB, but which local networks the plan actually uses in Hungary, Germany, Austria and Czechia. Sometimes the “bad eSIM” experience is really just the local partner network being weak in one area.
Also worth thinking about whether you need actual calls or SMS. A lot of travel eSIMs are data only, which is fine for maps and WhatsApp, but less ideal if you need to call a hotel or receive texts. I’ve started checking for plans that include at least some voice/SMS as well as data. eSIM.net, Orange and a few others have options like that, so I’d compare those against Nomad/Airalo/Roamless depending on how much data you need.

For that trip I’d install it before leaving, test that it appears on the phone, but only switch mobile data over once you land. And I’d keep the home line available for bank texts if your phone supports dual SIM/eSIM properly.

We just returned from our 20 night trip. Roamless worked for us in Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary. We had 9GB of free data from the ROAM25, ROAM50 and ROAM75. In the end, I only had to spend USD$1.75 of my flex data balance.

There were only 2 glitches which were pretty strange. Both my wife and I have the same Pixel 7a phones. In Bratislava, I could only connect to O2 Edge which was slow; my wife connected to Telecom SK which had fast 5G. And in Budapest, I had Yettel 5G which was fast, while my wife had spotty service with Telecom HU. We never figured out how to switch to the other providers even though we had the same phone and same Roamless esim.

funpig, these are something I know nothing about. A question, do you know if the service providers give the same quality of service to the ESIM companies as they do to their own customers? I ask because I have Telecom and my SO has Yettel both 5G but my service is generally a lot better than hers; contrary to your experience. Maybe it’s the phones? She has a new IPhone and I have one step up from the bottom of the line Samsung. Oh and my old US service TMobile flip phone does as well if not better than both of the local phones.

Mr. E

It is possible for any provider to throttle their service, even for their own customers.

FWIW, I contacted Roamless after I got home. They said this kind of thong can happen Even though both my wife and I had the same phone and the same roamless esim plan.

They made the following suggestions to try to fix the problem the next time:
1. Reset the network settings and reboot the phone (I tried this and it did not work at the time).

1. Switch off the automatic select Network and manually select the network (We also tried doing this but the other network was not available to the non-working phone).

2. Switch from 5G to 4G. I did not try this, but this could help. 4G has a much greater range and more stable connection than 5G even though 5G is faster.

3. Delete the esim (which might be corrupted) and reload a new esim. They assured me that I would not lose my existing account or any flex credit balance.

4. And if all else fails, I should open up a chat support with roamless.

Anyways, I'm home now. We'll see what happens the next time. Remember that Roamless worked flawlessly for us for five out of the six cities we visited. I like the pay as you go system. It is so much more cheaper than paying for a block of data which goes to waste at the end of 30 days.

These things are sort of maddening. Shouldn't be so hard. Almost as bad as buying train tickets.

The issue that I used to have with T-Mobile was if I were out of the country too long they would stop my service when I got back to the US. A quick trip to a TMobile store got it turned back on. But the last few times no issues.