Are you leaving for an Asia trip and visiting multiple countries? Then you need a reliable internet connection. In this article I will show you my experience with a good eSim for Asia provided by Sim Local that is valid for 35 asian countries like if it was just one. This way you can forget the pain of changing sim every time you move to a different country.
Sim or eSim, what’s better in Asia?
When traveling abroad for a short time you have two options: buy a classic physical Sim card or an eSim, if your phone supports that (check here if your phone does).
Shortly, an eSim is for sure the best options for various reasons:
- they are almost always way cheaper than phisical sim;
- if you choose standard sim cards, you need to get them phisically in advance or when you get to the destination country, so you need time for finding, buying them (avoiding the overpriced ones at the airports) and top-up them;
- eSim providers usually offer options for multiple countries, like the one I tried.
Which eSim for Asia? 20GB in 35 countries!
If you want to try the same eSim I had during my trip check out this eSim from Sim Local that covers:
- 35 different asian countries without need to switch or reconfigure anything,
- 20GB of data,
- 31 days of validity,
- 14-day refund policy – if someone changes their mind or has a poor experience, they offer a full refund,
- calls and messages available.
I chose this eSim because I’ve been to to Philippines and Vietnam but also been touching Malaysia and Turkey with connecting flights.
You should also try the Find my plan feature to check out which is the best and cost-effective option based on your actual destinations and trip length.
All these countries are covered (the full list in the eSim page) so no need to actively change sim or reconfigure your phone.
How does the eSim work?
Ok, here just some basic explanation that is the same for any eSim for Asia or for any other country. When you buy the package, you receive your eSim basically in the form of a QR code or a string that you can manually paste into your phone settings if you can’t take a pic of the QR code, example below:
The only important thing you have to remember is that the moment you activate the eSim you need to have a working internet connection just for the activation process (that takes a minute or so), then plan your steps in advance.
If you buy a 31 days eSim like this and your trip is something like 20-25 days long, then you can just activate it at home before leaving. If your trip is exactly 31 days or longer like mine, you may want to activate it after landing at destination, connecting for example to the airport wifi like I did. (Both Istambul and Kuala Lumpur airport had free wifi if you’re heading there too 🙂 )
When your eSim for Asia is active, just double check into your phone settings to confirm that calls, sms and data are going to use your new eSim, especially if you have a Dual Sim phone (below an example for Samsung S-series). Now you’re good to go until the end of your trip!
How does Sim Local eSim perform?
Now it comes to my actual experience! The activation process summarized above was smooth and I was able to connect in about a minute. Every time I moved to a new country, the eSim was connecting fast and without any trouble, even faster than my italian standard Sim card when I roam into european countries.
This specific eSim is provided by Orange (FR) that supports roaming on multiple local carriers on each asian country supported (so you’re not sticked to just one carrier) and supports both 4G and 5G, the latter was often available especially in bigger cities.
During my month abroad I’ve experienced some glitches only 3 or 4 times when walking into very crowded areas or neighborhoods, when the data service wasn’t actually transmitting data: most of the times a phone reboot solved it, otherwise I needed to move back a bit from the crowd. I can’t tell if it was caused by the eSim or the local infrastructure itself. The rest of the time it worked smoothly.
How good is the coverage for the Sim Local eSim?
Of course you may be wondering how good an eSim for Asia will perform at your actual destinations. There’s an easy way to check that in advance:
- Step 1: let’s suppose you bought my same eSim supported by Orange carrier (if yours is on a different carrier then change step 2 properly);
- Step 2: go to Orange website, click the box “autres pais du monde” to see Asian countries and then select your destination: you’ll see below all the local carriers that supports roaming with Orange;
- Step 3: go to the Nperf website and see for that country the coverage map for each local carrier found at step 2.
Would I suggest Sim Local?
Yes, I think this is a good eSim for Asia travellers, I had a good experience especially because I was always connected any time I moved to a different country so I didn’t need to think about buying/switching physical Sims or buying new eSim for the new country, so I would use it again at next trips.
Sim Local discount code
If you want to try Sim Local, don’t miss out this 5% discount code valid on all their eSims:
ALWAYSONBOARD
or click here to have it automatically added when you reach payment page.
