Comments on: What’s the Best Travel eSIM in 2025?

By: Dave Dean

Dave Dean

Yep, I agree that (depending to some extent on what country you’re in vs where the eSIM provider routes through) ping times will be worse with travel eSIMs than local SIMs.

How much that matters will depend quite a bit on how you use your phone while traveling. I’m halfway through a three month trip at the moment, typically using various travel eSIMs for shorter stays in a country and switching to local SIMs the rest of the time, and I can honestly say I haven’t noticed the difference even when my local SIM package expired in the UK and I bought a travel eSIM to tide me over for the last few days.

That said, I don’t usually buy large data bundles, which means I don’t usually make video calls or watch much in the way of streaming video over cellular data anyway. I just wait until I’m on WiFi for that.

If your usage is different to mine, you’ll probably notice it more!

By: Jake Lewis

Jake Lewis

Thank you for this comparison between players, particularly the posted SpeedTest results. In general I’ve found the down/up speeds to vary with signal strength, time of day, etc, as you’d expect, but the ping results are generally abysmal for eSIM products – most of the results you posted are 300 – 700ms, although Nomad is an exception (in Australia at least). A local sim will usually be less than 50ms.
The reason for this is ALL the data these eSIMs provide is routed through an overseas server, usually in Hong Kong, Singapore, Poland, etc, and then back again to whatever country you’re in. That makes realtime communication – like WhatsApp voice, and wifi-calling very laggy and frustrating, more so if video is involved like Zoom or Facetime.
Web surfing is also slowed down by these pings as most webpages take 3-5+ back and forths – likely an extra 2 or 3 seconds – before the content is shown. It’d probably be OK for streaming movies, or down/uploading large files.
It’s often tricky to find out where this overseas server is prior to purchase, although a few sellers try and dress it up as a free VPN-type security IP mask. I imagine your Nomad test above was using a Singapore based server, hence the reasonably fast ping.
Some of the global packages offer multiple servers – maybe one on each continent, but never one in each country.
My approach is to use the YesSIM payg product you recommend for airport to hotel data needs, and unless I’m just staying overnight or so, buying a local SIM/eSIM from a local carrier. It’ll have to be very inconvenient to get a local SIM/eSIM before I’d consider buying 10GB/30days travel eSIM with those pings!

By: Laura C.

Laura C.

I’ve used Airalo eSIMs successfully twice (a six-month global and a single-country one), but the seven-day one I bought for Isle of Man never did work when I was there last month, despite much troubleshooting with Airalo Support. They refunded the money.

By: Stefan H.

Stefan H.

I am a fan of Ubigi because you just have to install it once and you can always buy data on it, even if you are in another country already and don’t have an internet bundel as the eSim you install allows for a free connection to their service.
With other services I had to install a different eSim per package or even per purchase, and maintaining those on the phone after expiration. Also some others require to already have an internet connection to be able to activate the package first, which is annoying when arriving at a place to discover their wifi is broken when counting on it being available.
Also, sometimes the packages from my default sim from home can be interesting as well. My provider offers monthly packages when you go somewhere, valid for 31 days. So it is always worthwhile to check-out your own providers offering before jumping through loops.

By: Dave Dean

Dave Dean

In reply to Tony Page.

Thanks Tony. I have a list of other eSIM companies to test and write up when I get a spare few days (I’ve been traveling for the last couple of months without a lot of laptop time!) – Holafly is one of them. 🙂

By: Tony Page

Tony Page

Surprised you didn’t include Holafly. Their 60 day Europe “unlimited data” deal (AUD127) seems good (you can get a 10% discount if you go via their chat, thanks Manuela) and you get an Austrian telephone number. It includes the UK too and the claimed providers are good. I’ll let you know how I go when I get back in October!

By: Jake

Jake

In reply to Anthony Secco. Keep Go's Pisces plan worked well for me for a week in Paris, albeit mostly 4G on Orange network. And the leftover data will still be valid when I return next month! Also good is that they give a French IP number, so services know I'm in France, and latency is low for VoIP. Many of the other eSIMs have Hong Kong, or other out-of-country IPs.

By: Laura C.

Laura C.

Thanks for this excellent coverage of eSIMs! I’m in the market for one, so this was timely.

By: Anthony Secco

Anthony Secco

KeepGo has some excellent coverage and rates. Their data is good for a year.

By: John A

John A

Hey Dave, check out the new offering from Soprani[DOT]ca, the Canadian makers of open-source XMPP-based JMP Chat. You can sign up for their data eSIM or physical SIM (both still in beta, with a waiting list), load some non-expiring credit, and use it throughout the US and Canada (only available there at the moment). But as your credit doesn’t ever expire, you can keep it and use it for repeated trips in the US and Canada. (I think they’ll ship the SIM to non-US/Canada addresses, but please verify.)

Paired with their JMP chat account (which works anywhere you have an internet connection, but only comes with a US or Canada number), you can get cheap phone calls, SMS, and MMS service, too.

Their SIM/eSIM service: jmp[DOT]chat/sim
Main site, XMPP service: jmp[DOT]chat