Travel Toolkit: The Best and Most Reliable eSIMs for international travel

The best and most reliable eSIMs for International Travels include Airalo, Airhub, Better Roaming, Ubigi, HolaFly, aloSIM and Instabridge.

Reliability should be your #1 determining factor for choosing an eSIMs provider especially for digital nomads or travelers. Without a reliable provider for eSIMs, who cares how many Gigabytes of data you have or what speed your connection is? If the connection is unreliable, you are holding an almost useless phone that is severely limited in functionality. We depend on data to navigate the streets of a new town or find that restaurant everyone is raving about on social media. Data can also assist us in times of emergency where we need to contact help or find the nearest hospital. 

Of course reliability isn’t the only factor that is important, we also need an eSim provider to have a large range of supported countries, excellent customer support and good bang for the buck. For a provider to be recommended here, we make sure they offer a product that we can easily recommend to our own family and friends when they are about to embark on their trip. Here are current and helpful insight on the best and most reliable eSims for international travel.

Who are eSIMs for?

eSIMs are for people whose primary phone plan doesn’t offer international roaming or offer international roaming but at a very expensive price. eSIMs are also for people whose international roaming plan offers international roaming but at a significantly lower speed like Edge or 3G. There are a group of people like programmers, content creators and digital nomads who rely on fast and reliable connection and having a reliable eSIM plan is a must-have.

Note: Nerdticket does not get any commission or sponsorship from the links below. These recommendations are based on our own research and accessing customer feedback.

Best and most reliable eSims providers List

Airalo

Website: https://www.airalo.com/

Airalo is the king of eSIM popularity right now with a customer based of over 10,000,000 users. This is for good reasons. Airalo provides one of the industry’s best user experiences with a very intuitive mobile app. Airalo has support in over 200+ countries and offers tons of flexible plans to fit your needs. Plans are broken down to two products, one with only data and the other is with data/calls/texts. For the majority of travelers, the data plan is enough and you save money too. Airalo makes an easy addition to our list of the best and most reliable eSims for international travel.

For most people, the 10GB, 180 Days data only plan is the best plan at $59. This plan allows users to not worry about data being used for navigation or checking up social media and messages.

Airhub

Website: https://www.airhubapp.com/

Airhub is catching on in terms of popularity because it provides one of the best bang for your buck in the eSIM business. 25GB plan including data/calls/texts for $39.90 per month via monthly subscription plan. There are other subscription plans such as for 3 months or 6 months to further lower your cost.

Better Roaming

Website: https://www.betterroaming.com/

Better Roaming is another eSIM carrier that I would recommend taking a look after. Often it runs a promotion like as of this posting, there is a 20% discount for eSIMs for the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Australia. Keep an eye out for other Better Roaming discounts. Better Roaming offers a wide array of support countries and fast connectivity. The sweet spot of the 10GB plan costs only $17.99 and is valid for 30 days.

Ubigi

Website: https://cellulardata.ubigi.com/

Ubigi is an award winning eSIMs provider backed by Japan’s telecommunication giant NTT. It has steller reviews from customers in Europe and in Japan. It also supports over 200 of other countries. For its 20GB plan (Ubigi doesn’t have a 10GB plan), most countries are priced affordably at $19 per month. Ubigi is an easy recommendation to our list of the best and most reliable eSims for international travel. Award winning customer experience and one of the industry best affordable rates? You can’t go wrong with Ubigi.

HolaFly

Website: https://esim.holafly.com/

For those who value unlimited data and want a reliable eSIMs carrier, you should check out HolaFly. What stands HolaFly apart besides its quirky name is its unlimited data plan. The price varies from country to country and you can decide on how many days you would like to be covered. 5 Days, 7 Days, 10 Days, 15 Days and 20 Days plans are offered. HolaFly plans may not be the absolute cheapest at face value but for an unlimited data plan, it’s very affordable and worth taking a look at.  A week’s worth of unlimited data will cost you around $29.00. Remember, HolaFly are those who don’t want to worry about data limits.

aloSIM

Website: https://alosim.com/

aloSIM is another great choice for those looking for reliable and easy to set up eSIMs. Nothing about this carrier is unique and it’s pretty straightforward in offering reliable eSIMs for many destinations. There is support to over 175 countries and each eSIM includes calling and texting functionality. One of the biggest downfalls about aloSIMS is that it’s the most expensive offering on this list. A 30 days, 10GB data plan will set you back around $21.

Instabridge

Website: https://instabridge.com/

Instabridge is a unique product amongst all the other eSIM reliable providers listed here and is growing very fast in terms of users. First off, there is no data expiration, it does have a Pay as you go model where you keep your data forever. There are no hidden fees and there is seamless connection when you step into a new country. Great for those traveling into multiple countries.

The biggest differentiator between this and the other brands is that Instabridge offers so much more than just reliable data capabilities. When you sign up, you get access to a WiFi map with over 20 million global WiFi hotspots for completely free Internet access. Instabridge also offers its users free VPN service on android and cloud storage through their degoo.com cloud storage brand. Instabridge users get access to its data-saving browser that compresses data 10x compared to Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox browsers.

Instabridge is for those looking for a reliable all-in-one eSIM international carrier with no data expiration and extra safety and cloud features. Instabridge is competitively priced too at $50 for seamless data connectivity to over 127 countries. A strong and easy recommendation to add Instabridge into the best and most reliable eSims for international travel.

What makes these listed eSIMs the best?

Reliability

From the information I gathered from actual users through reading forums and testimonial, and being a user myself, people praise the service they received from these eSIMs carrier. On top of that, they had no issues when they were abroad. For 99% of the time, they were able to receive fast and reliable data. I say 99% of the time because there will be a situation like you in the remote jungle or countryside where there are no cell towers nearby, services across the broad will be spotty or nonexistent.

Large number of supported countries

The baseline I used for carriers to make it to this list is that they need to support at least 100 countries worldwide. This ensures stress-free travels and wide global connectivity.

Great customer support

Besides reliable eSIMs, great customer support is another important factor when deciding which eSIMs carrier you would like to use. These eSIMs carriers for the far majority of the time received great feedback on support. When you need your data, you want it immediately or asap. With good customer support, you will get back to the activities that matter to you the most.

Pricing is one of the most important factors in deciding which eSIMs carrier to use. To be on this list, all data plans with 10GB of data need to be $30 and for unlimited data, the threshold was under $75 per month. The pricing often changes so be sure to check regularly before your trip to see which eSIMs can get you the best bang for your buck.

Must do before purchasing an eSIM

Verify iPhone eSIM compatibility

• Go to Settings > General > About
• Scroll down to view the Carrier Lock section
• If your iPhone is unlocked, it will show “No SIM restrictions”
• Scroll down to Available SIM (iOS 15 or later) or Digital SIM (earlier iOS versions)
• If your phone supports eSIMs, it will show a 15-digit IMEI number 

Verify Android eSIM compatibility

1. DIAL *#06# and press the call button.
2. If your device is eSIM-compatible, you should be able to view your device’s eSIM unique identification number (EID). 

To use an eSIM for android, your phone needs to be carrier-unlocked. This enables you to use multiple eSIM or traditional SIM cards from global carriers.

Setup before traveling!

When you sign up for any eSIM, you will need to scan with your phone camera a QR code that will be emailed to you or sent to you via SMS message. This is easiest done when you have another device such as a computer near you. Also it’s best to ensure your eSIM is working perfectly BEFORE your trip.

Estimate your anticipated data usage

There is no one size fits all for the amount of data used during a trip but in today’s world, 10GB is the sweet spot for most people. If you know you use less data or more data, adjust your data plan accordingly.

Make sure your country of travel is supported

Don’t just sign up for an eSIM, double check the country you are visiting is supported. Don’t automatically assume since it says Europe, it means all European countries are covered.

Look at eSIM provider internet speed

Another factor to consider is the internet speed they provided. Some people need blazing fast 5G connection to do their data intensive activities but for most of us, 4G speeds should suffice. 

Key Takeaways

There are a lot of eSIM carriers out there but here are the top eSIM carriers based on reliability, supported countries, great customer support and affordable pricing. All of the seven eSIM carriers listed are rated extremely well by customers for having reliable service and great connection speed that you won’t be disappointed with. They all deserve a spot on anyone’s list for being the best and most reliable eSIMs for international travel. Be sure to check out each of them individually before going on your trip because pricing and features can change due to promotions or change in business decisions.

The listing will be updated regularly if another carrier proves to be a better eSIM product.