Specific Questions on eSim for Italy: Data + Telephone for iPhone13 Pro

If your regular AT&T plan has data then your International Day Pass will have the same. At least that is how it works for us. Not the cheapest but this way we just use our phones as we do at home.

Re:data plan being included with international pass from US carrier if you have a data plan with them normally — yes but check with AT&T on whether they will throttle your data speeds once you use a certain number of GB in a given 24-hour period. That’s what Verizon did with its Travel Pass after I used 2 GB in 24 hours (though I could pay an upcharge to reinstate high speed data for the remainder of that 24-hour period).

I bought a physical SIM card from a Vodafone store in Florence and used that alongside my US carrier e-SIM. So I can’t advise on Vodafone's e-SIM, just that my reception and speeds were fine with Vodafone. It did help to be able to speak and understand some Italian for the in-person transaction but there’s always Google Translate.

Thank you both for the suggestions, appreciate it.

I’m leaving for Italy this weekend and have bought the Orange Holiday Europe esim from simoptions.com. It includes a French phone number that works all over Europe, plus data. You can top it up for future trips and it installs via an emailed QR code. You can also use it as a mobile hotspot. I haven’t activated it yet or used it, but after a lot of research, it seemed like the most robust and cost effective option for my needs. I have Verizon and have used its $10 travel pass on previous trips but wanted to give this a shot as I now have an iPhone that uses esims. Hope his info is helpful.

PS: You can also use What’sApp for calls, which I’ve found a lot of people/places in Italy prefer.

Optionally, I am looking at the data options recommended on the forum Airolo. It is unclear to me how I handle calls within Italy to restaurants, hotels, etc. I have AT&T with a international day pass, but don't really want to use the day pass and buy a separate data option. Any help would be appreciated.

I've used Airalo. It's data only. The calls you make would be on your AT&T plan

I agree with the above - as Felicia said, you can use WhatsApp for calling (or even FaceTime audio if both parties have iPhones). And Airalo is only a data plan - no phone calling. The only eSIM I know of with a phone number is the Orange Holiday eSIM as mentioned above. And it is a French phone number.

I’ve been traveling for many decades and since the explosion of the internet, I have found that in most cases, there is no need to make phone calls in Europe. I use WhatsApp or FaceTime to make calls back home and do that when wifi is available. But most hotels and so on do not need to call you. Obviously there are exceptions but as a general rule, you should be fine with a data-only plan.

But of course if you really want an Italian phone number, you will probably need too get a physical SIM card.

Thank you Felicia, Mardee, and Edward for your advice. I do have What's App and didn't even consider that as an option. Also, Orange as an option was new to me as well.

I have used both the Orange Holiday eSim and Airalo data only. Both work well. So it depends on your needs. Sometimes I need the ability for phone calls and sometimes not (plus I dislike making phone calls). I find that a lot of places in the countries I have been since esims because more available (which doesn’t include Italy) use WhatsApp, so data only takes care of that. And I HAVE used WhatsApp from the U.S. to Italian numbers.

Be aware of the length of time each plan is good for. I also have a personal dislike for changing out physical sims, but that is also a fine option depending upon your preferences. They may be cheaper than the Orange Holiday eSim plan.

We spent 2 weeks in Italy in March. On previous travels we've paid for physical sims (vodafone,TIM,Windtre) all were data, text, call with Italian phone number, but currently all options are more than $35. So, this trip, I tried using an ESIM from BNESIM, for data only. I based my decision on this article, https://abrokenbackpack.com/best-europe-esim-providers/#Airalo_eSIM_Eurolink_Plan
Opting for BNESIM because it was very cheap, ~$7 after discount code for 3gb data that doesn't expire. We did get a physical sim card from Vodafone in Florence for my husband's phone, just to cover our bases. I shopped around in Florence and Vodafone and Windtre were a few euro less than TIM. I used my phone the most - almost constantly for the full 2 weeks, when not on hotel wifi, for directions, to look up museum info etc, for whatsapp conversations both back to US and to our hotels, and to make some restaurant reservations. Once or twice I used my husband's phone to call for restaurant reservations. There were only a few times when his phone had better cell service than mine, but we were always in 3 major cities (Florence, Venice, Rome). At the end of the 2 weeks I still have almost 2gb data left for my next trip to Europe in the fall.

Before we left I looked at prepaying for the TIM tourist sim and getting the voucher (25euro vs 37 euro onsite?) I am glad I didn't go that route because I walked into 2 different TIM stores in Florence, one said they wouldn't have been able to accept the voucher (not a full TIM store?) and the other said they could have, but all of their computers were down and I would have to come back. That voucher was for a physical sim, I don't know if I would have had the same response if I ordered an ESIM.

BNESIM and other companies from that article do have options for also buying a virtual phone number, but that seemed a little more complicated than I wanted to try. My sister is traveling next month and may try to get a virtual phone number from BNESIM for Italy.

Hope this helps.