Using your mobile phone during international travel has always been expensive.
Pre-smartphone, you’d carefully ration how often you make/take calls because the per-minute charges ratcheted up substantially once out of the United States. Same for text messages: remember, this was the era when you were charged separately for text messages!
The introduction of smart phones added roaming data costs to your concerns – stories abound of unexpected data charges – and the choices were 1) an overpriced international data plan from your provider or 2) cross your fingers on the usage charges. My wife and I would disable data roaming and exist on whatever WiFi we found. My provider T-Mobile now offers a free but extremely limited 2G/3G international data option, which is just barely usable (sometimes).
The oft-repeated advice is to purchase a temporary SIM upon arrival, often available immediately after clearing immigrations and customs. The disadvantage is that your US phone number is replaced by a local number, which not everyone has, so I kept my US-based SIM and budgeted for the inevitable large bill. [I’ve never had a dual-SIM phone and don’t know how well they work.]
Problem: Iceland
Not Iceland itself, obviously, it’s a beautiful country with beautiful people and my wife and I are already planning our next trip.
The highlight for our July 2022 trip was to drive around the entire island on Highway 1, the Icelandic Ring Road: starting at Keflavik and stopping in Akrueyi, Egilsstaðir and Vik before returning to Reyjkavik. The total length is over 800 miles, and takes you through the distinct ecological/geological parts of Iceland, including innumerable (and often unnamed) waterfalls.
[The Golden Circle is a shorter, less arduous route which still shows some incredible scenery and is an option when time is limited. Truthfully, we should have stopped overnight more than we did.]
The problem: having the wireless bandwidth necessary for Google Maps so we always know where we are or where we are going, especially when an intriguing sign causes us to divert from Highway 1? T-Mobile’s data plans still appeared expensive and 2G/3G – when available – wasn’t a option either.
Solution: Third-party Data Plan
I found multiple providers that sell data plans that use eSIM rather than a physical SIM. But first, a little context.
What is an eSIM?
eSIM stands for embedded SIM and fulfills the same purpose as the physical SIM cards everyone has used for years, just embedded on the phone’s motherboard instead; think of Apple silicon and system-on-a-chip. As a result, eSIMs can be provisioned remotely without requiring a trip to your mobile company’s store.
eSIMs require a Subscription Manager Data Preparation Address (a.k.a. SM-DP+) and an activation code to , which may be entered manually or may be automatically configured using a QR code, depending on provider.
Recent Apple iPhones and variety of Android phones support eSIMs; in fact, eSIMs completely eliminate the need for physical SIMs. Mobile operators, however, are resistant because of how consumers can easily jump between providers. However, their battle is lost: after many years of planning, iPhone 14 in the US no longer used physical SIMs and it’s expected that iPhone 15 in Europe will make the same transition. Great news for the consumer.
Purchasing and Configuring
After confirming that your phone does in fact support eSIM, find a provider who offers the features you want: data plan only or data/calling plan; country-specific or region-wide (e.g., Europe); network speed; how much data; cost. I chose Nomad because I liked their data-only plans, the countries served, and the cost.
Nomad has a mobile app from which you create an account, purchase the plans, and easy-to-understand installation instructions. Once the data plan is activated, you can track how much data remains as well as purchase more data when necessary.
Activating and Using
After activating with the Nomad app, on my iPhone you need to enable Data Roaming and enable Nomad as the primary data provider. And you’re off!
Caveats
Messaging was tricky:
- sending messages to iPhone contacts required (usually) sending via their Apple ID and not their phone number;
- sending messages to non-iPhone contacts required using the non-Nomad plan because Nomad doesn’t include a phone plan and there isn’t a local phone number associated with it;
- sending messages to both iPhone and non-iPhone contacts in the same message would use the non-Nomad plan.
You’ll likely need some trial-and-error to figure out how it works, I’m still not convinced I completely understand.
Follow-Up
More Nomad
We used Nomad when we traveled to Japan in November 2022, again impressed with the simplicity, the speed, the overall value. This trip was longer than Iceland and we needed to top-off the plans with additional data, and did so with no problems.
Nomad Support is also great: due to some problems with the app (most likely stupid-user-error), where we purchased plans what we didn’t need. As these plans were not activated, they canceled the plans and issued an immediate refund.
Trying out T-Mobile
Conversely, I purchased T-Mobile data plans for our May 2023 European trip to London and Amsterdam: T-Mobile appeared to be cheaper when compared to the Nomad plans needed, if you factored in calling/talk minutes.
Overall I was not impressed. The plan offers 5G when available – and you expect major European cities to have 5G – but usually it was 3G and 4G. Very frustrating.
Verdict
Third-party data plans and eSIMs rock!
Image Credits
“Crevice at Gulfoss” by joiseyshowaa is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
