eSIM / Simcard for 30 days in Switzerland

Posted by meenamehta74 on 07/25/25 01:22 AM

Hi fellow travelers,

Looking for advise for the best eSIM / Simcard to use for 3 weeks in Switzerland and 1 week in Greece.

I would like to have data and also be able to call / WhatsApp family in USA as well make local calls in Switzerland for restaurant bookings etc.
I am thinking of carrying an older iPhone 13 and get a SIM card put in it at the airport, and use it to make calls and WhatsApp, messages etc.
In the iPhone that I use currently I plan to add an eSIM with enough data to use during the entire trip for hiking, surfing net etc.

I have read that if you change Simcards , you may lose all your contacts etc. That’s why I am thinking of doing this.

My questions :
1. Do you think this is a good plan ?
2. Which eSIM / SIM card you think would best suit my requirements.
3. I have read that one should download the app and get it activated whilst still in USA so that the plan activates as soon as you land. Is this correct t ?

Look forward to your advise / responses.

TIA

Posted by travelerguy

West Michigan

07/25/25 01:25 PM

428 posts

Personally, I always bring a second phone as a backup in case my main one gets lost, stolen, or dies. I copy my contacts to the backup, as well as the directory with my travel info, hotel info, rail tickets, etc...That phone has a Roamless (data only) esim which is Pay as You Go. So I keep $10 or $20 in it and it's always ready for use.

As a side note, it's handy to have in the U.S. Right now I'm at a big airshow in Wisconsin and the local wifi is totally unusable due to 40,000 campers, and even the cell towers are slowing down due to overload. I use the Roamless esim as a hotspot, because it uses AT&T and they seem to have more capacity than Tmobile right here.

As for losing contacts, I'm an Android guy, but have never lost contacts. A long time ago, I lost the texts I had sent/received, but last few years, that hasn't happened. Everyone should be periodically saving their contacts to a .vcf file anyway. They are just too important to lose.

Lots of sims to choose from, I've used Sunrise in Switzerland, worked fine. Bought at Zurich airport.
Definitely download the app for each sim or esim, create an account with username and password. Learn how to use the app, and how to pay for a plan (credit card, Paypal, ApplePay...?). Learn how to top up the plan if you need to. Do that well before the trip. Then pay for a plan and activate the sim/esim the day before you leave home.

Posted by meenamehta74 OP

07/25/25 07:35 PM

60 posts

Thank you so much for a very educational text.

Great idea to make a copy of the contacts . Will do that definitely.

Thinking of going with Airalo eSIM for data.
Any knowledge of this provider ?

TIA

Posted by travelerguy

West Michigan

07/27/25 12:26 PM

428 posts

First of this year, I made an account with Airalo for use in Switzerland. They had a free 3-day esim for trial use, so I did that. It activated fine, and connected to Verizon or Tmobile towers. Only problem was I had no data. I found that the installation process did not install an APN on my phone. So I found the settings on the Airalo website and created the APN. After that, it worked fine.

Might be just me, or my setup (I use an esim adapter card). Airalo has been mentioned often on this forum, and others are also happy with them.