Airlo

I used Airalo on the Germany Austria Switzerland tour last fall. It worked flawlessly. My husband’s phone is too old for an eSIM so I just made mine into a hotspot for him. I downloaded and paid while in the U.S., and then turned it on at our first Europe stop (Iceland). No problems at all. Just keep in mind that it doesn’t work for phone calls; just internet access.

Yes, it is easy. We used it for the first time last month and had no problems getting service. You can install the Airalo app and choose the plan you want before you leave home. It becomes the secondary sim. Airalo will send you the steps to take after you install the app. While on the plane with the phone in airplane mode, in settings switch your primary sim off and the secondary on. Also turn roaming on. After you land turn off airplane mode. It should take a couple of minutes to connect to a local network via Airalo. Reverse the steps on the plane on the way home.

Remember that this is data only. Phone calls can be made via WhatsApp so if you think you want to make any calls be sure you and the other party install WhatsApp.

I have tried to list the all steps I took to install and use the Airalo esim. We usually do something wrong when installing apps but had no problems. We got a esim for myself and my husband and were glad we did. We plan to buy another plan for our next trip as it was cost effective and easy to use.

Airalo worked great for us for a month in Italy last December.

I found this youtube video very helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rjwAKTYF9U&t=908s

My only tiny hesitation was when I went to "install" it on my phone at home, my phone asked me right away if I wanted to "activate" it instead of "install" it, so I waited until the day before we left to install it. Turns out I could have installed/activated it any time and it would not have activated until we landed in Italy.

You can tell how much technical knowledge I have by the way I talk about my phone asking me stuff.

It was easy and cheap to top up my data for another week when my 30 days were up (we were in Italy for 35 days).

I used it in London last year and as it is already on my phone, I will top it up for use in Scotland this year.

I also used Airalo in Kenya. The coverage was excellent and it was useful when the wifi didn’t extend to my lodging in the Masai and Amboseli. In fact, I used it in the Masai to WhatsApp home during a spectacular sunset to share it with loved ones at home.

I have used Airlo in Italy, Portugal, and London. For the most part the service worked well. I had some issues in Portugal and was able to connect with the Airlo support team (only via email). They are generally responsive, but did need a back-up (my international plan with AT&T) for one day. The nice thing about Airlo is it lets you know when you are running low and you can top off on data.

Thanks for the responses. This sounds like a much better deal than what I have done in the past, which was to try to get a physical SIM in the airport (which took forever when we were in Italy) and pay a whole lot more.

Cheers -

george

This article (from a reputable site I've followed for years) goes into detail about this service: Airalo eSim. Although I have data through T-Mobile, I'm tempted to add Airalo for more data my next trip, especially because my phone will let me load multiple eSims and because the cost is very low.

I pay Google Fi $10 per GB of data. The cost is negligible when I'm not traveling, because I use very little data at home. At the rate of about 1 GB per week (and that's making some attempt to be careful), the cost goes up to $40+ per month when I'm in Europe--and I'm there for multiple months every year. Fi cut me off after less than 3 months last year and I used Airalo happily afterward. I'm asking myself now why I wouldn't want to just buy an Airalo eSIM at the beginning of my trip and use it all the time. It will not cost $10 per GB, and I know from last year's experience I can continue to receive texts to my Google Fi phone number. Actually, I can get phone calls, too, but I could do without that access if I needed to; texts are important because of the times you need a confirmation code for something.

I do have a wrinkle: Google Fi doesn't cover North Macedonia, so I guess I won't be doing any regular texting there. Airalo has an eSIM for the country, though, so I'll have data.

Cannot recommend Airalo highly enough -- just returned from a one-week trip to Israel and I decide to try the eSIM rather than owrry about finding wifi and hotspots, and to avoid having to find a store to purchase a SIM card. The instructions were fairly straightforward, both written and from their YouTube demonstration, and it was a very affordable $13.50 for 10GB of data.

We're going to Italy at the end of the month, for 2.5 weeks, and I plan to purchase an eSIM through Airalo again for the trip. Not sure if my husband will as well, as he has an Android phone and I'm not sure what the deal is for eSIMs for him. We always use WhatsApp and Facetime (my iphone) to communicate with friends and family while we're away, and most restaurants, tour guides, etc. also use WhatsApp, so we won't miss having a local number.

hope this helps!!

I have an Android. The E Sims were super easy to install and use.

Nomad is an alternative to Airalo that is worth at least comparison shopping. I've had a perfect experience every time I've used a Nomad eSIM.

T-Mobile had downgraded my international plan from 5 G speed to 256k.

If I install an Airlo esim, that means I can't receive phone calls on my regular phone line. Right?

I know all about What's App but I need to be able to receive phone calls from people who don't use wifi calling.

If I install an Airlo esim, that means I can't receive phone calls on my regular phone line. Right?

Incorrect. The following link provides information on how phone calls can still come through on your T-Mobile SIM and how to configure settings accordingly.

https://alosim.com/how-to-make-phone-calls-with-a-data-only-esim/

Frank, I think you may also want to continue receiving texts to your regular telephone number, right? When I activated a data-only Airalo eSIM last year, texts to my regular Google Fi number (which are free) continued to come in, but I was unable to initiate texts. I had to do a bit of Googling, but without too much trouble I found out how to change a setting on my phone so outbound texts would be sent via my Google Fi number. I no longer remember what I needed to do, but I'm sure you can find the same information I did if you need it.

I don't know whether it will work the same way with T-Mobile as with Fi. Although Fi had completely cut off my data, it didn't alter my ability to text and make phone calls. It was just that installation of the eSIM made the eSIM primary for texting.

The process of linking texting capability to the original SIM rather than the eSIM seems a bit different for Android phones vs. iPhones.