The Orange (France) 14-day calls+texts+data eSIM for Europe is €24.99 (and iirc can be topped up if your stay is longer) does not list Montenegro or Albania or Bosnia in its coverage. What gives?
They have offers for country-specific data only eSIMs for those countries, but the pricing is not very good.
What eSIM have you been using when in the Adriatic region? Any trouble with coverage? Pricing?
thanks in advance for your input!
I haven't visited those countries but I usually use Nomad eSIm which has given me great coverage.
I just looked it up and they do have a "Balkans" region eSIM that might cover your countries but it is quite pricey compared to other European regions. It depends on how much data you want as well.
Sorry can't be of more help here. I'll keep an eye on this post as Balkans is in my travel wish list.
I've been doing some further looking and it seems that the top contenders for this are Airalo and Saily.
Folks here on the forum have given many thumbs up for Airalo, I see, but what about experiences with Saily?
The main criteria of course, are Price, How many days, and How many Gb. of data. Pick what suits your needs. But the trickier part is coverage. Airalo and Saily have websites where if you look deep enough, you can see what networks they connect to in each country. If they each use a certain network in Montenegro, then the "coverage" will be the same in Montenegro. For a bunch of countries, it's a lot of comparing. Perhaps the bigger, older company (Airalo) might have better coverage on average?
Avi, we used Saily in Japan. Everything worked perfectly.
Not sure if its still valid but try the discount code TAW.
Apologies for this late response; I'm currently traveling.
Before my 2024 trip to several Balkan countries, I researched Airalo's coverage in the area. As I recall, there were one or two countries with no service--maybe Bosnia and North Macedonia. I ended up using country-specific Airalo eSIMs where available and my regular, pricey Google Fi SIM for the others. I don't remember issues with Airalo where I expected to use it
From an earlier post on this forum I learned about Bcengi and decided to use it both at home and when traveling. Its per-GB rates vary by country but for the places I checked in Europe, it seems less expensive than Airalo and vastly cheaper than Fi's $10/GB rate. Bcengi's ESIM has the advantage of having (pretty much) worldwide coverage and no time or usage limits. You make an initial deposit and when that money runs out, the company charges your credit card again. I found initial activation very easy and used Bcengi at home for several months without difficulty.
When I bought a new phone I ran into a bit of an issue, but the Support folks were extremely responsive. They issued a new smart code so I could install the eSIM on my new phone and transferred my remaining balance. I found I had to turn on Data Roaming, which I guess defaults to "Off" on new phones. I also needed to turn off "Select Automatically" under Network Operators and register the phone on the local network (3 found, but I think only one of them works with Bcengi), which I hadn't had to do during my initial installation. I don't know whether that's related to the new phone OS or a change Bcengi has made.
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I'm now wrapping up a three-week trip to Bosnia. Bcengi has worked fine in Sarajevo and Trebinje. I don't recall problems in Travnik or Jajce, but I had little need for cellular service in those small towns so I can't be sure. I had service during much of the time on buses from Sarajevo to Travnik and on to Jajce, Bosnia is a mountainous country, so it wouldn't be unexpected to encounter some service drop-outs in rural areas. However, I was very surprised the Bcengi eSIM didn't connect in Banja Luka or Mostar. I don't know whether that was a short-term service problem (those were consecutive destinations for me), but I cannot believe those are coverage dead zones for Bcengi and the local network operator it contracts with. I reported the problem in Banja Luka but haven't had a response from Bcengi Support.
Despite the issues in Banja Luka and Mostar, I'm happy to continue using Bcengi. I do have the advantage of Google Fi (expensive though it is) as a back-up option. And if Bcengi doesn't work in some places, at least the money you've spent won't evaporate at the end of a fixed service period.
I've been using Bcengi for a couple years now, works well where I've been. I also use Roamless, which is a very similar Pay As You Go plan. Works in some 200+ countries, prices similar to Bcengi. You could check out both websites to see the price per Gb. for each country you are interested in. And also check what networks they use, if you have the patience for that. Roamless also has a feature where you can make international phone calls very cheaply, depending on the country (but you can't receive calls). You can also verify your home cellphone number, and then when you make an international call with the Roamless app, the called person sees your home cellphone number. That might be useful to you.
I don't know the pricing for Adriatic countries, might be cheap or maybe not...
I go through Airalo. I’ve used it throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia and always been pleased with coverage and service.
I often recommend that travelers visit esimdb dot com (a free tool that is brand agnostic) to research what eSIMs are available within a particular region. I'm doing so again here.
