eSIMS are a sensational tool that allows you to connect to the internet the moment your plane lands at your destination in another country and mobile phones are allowed to be used. You leave the plane with your internet connection already activated.
Having access to the internet when you travel to Spain 🇪🇸, Portugal 🇵🇹 or, indeed, any other country on the planet, is for many travelers as essential as a hotel room in which to spend the night. On this time and age we do everything with our cellphones, we buy excursions, book restaurants, consult maps and communicate via messaging programs.
In the last few months we have travelled a lot throughout Europe, we have almost reached the North Pole, and we have also been to Brazil 🇧🇷, Australia 🇦🇺 and Singapore 🇸🇬. And on all those trips we used various eSIMs from the companies we recommend. Most of the eSIMS we used were from Airalo, Saily or Holafly. Our experience was very positive. In all cases, without exception, we had internet access as soon as the plane landed in the country. And always with very good connection speeds.
One of the advantages of Airalo and Saily, apart from the fact that its eSIMs are quite affordable, is that you can buy eSIMs with unlimited data or eSIMs with limited data you can top up if you use up the data limit you bought. You don’t have to worry too much, if you’re going to run out of data, you can top it up.
As our experience with the use of eSIMs was so satisfactory, we contacted Airalo and Saily to see if we could offer a bigger discount to our readers. We are affiliates of Airalo and Saily and every time you book an eSIM with the company following our links, you get a discount and we get paid a small commission. But we’d like to make it clear that, at least here, we don’t accept payments from companies to speak well of them. Not only do we not receive anything from them, but the eSIMs we test on our trips we buy them paying for them out of our own pocket, it’s our way of working. If we recommend them to you, it is because we think they are worth it.
Anyway, we got a 15% discount for those who have not yet tried an Airalo or Saily eSIM.
This discount applies to all eSIMs, whether they are for Spain, Portugal or anywhere else on the planet. In fact, a word of advice. If you are only travelling to Spain or Portugal, buy a national eSIM. But if you are travelling to both countries or if your trip includes several countries in Europe, it may be worth buying a regional eSIM, which is not much more expensive and will give you internet access in most of Europe.
With the advent of eSIMS, we have eliminated the worry of having to go out and look for a shop that sells chips for our mobile phones. We hope that if your phone accepts eSIMS, you’ll find them helpful too.
Thanks for your very informative and factual videos Tony. We have been using them to prepare for our upcoming first road trip through Spain and Portugal!
I used your 15% discount code today for Airalo and it worked just fine for my first eSIM.
Can I suggest you also add the actual codes to this article to assist readers with their purchases – 15S20M24 and 10S20M24.
Hi Kerry, glad to hear it worked fine. Thank you also for your helpful suggestion we’ve just implemented. Hope you have a great trip in Spain and Portugal!
Greetings. First, thank you for your advice (on another heading) about Zaragoza — we’ll spend a few days there next week. Second, FYI, I had a complicated time getting airolo. They got my info, They charged my visa, they emailed me (about 4 times…), but they could never find my account for me to add it to my phone. I spent too much time on live chat (4o minutes, chasing a $6 item!). I even had a receipt and order number. What happened? We had a wi-fi problem right when I purchased, but — I did get the charge, order # etc. No complaint to this great website. A modest warning to buyers. I went to vodaphone directly, and it worked in perhaps 10 minutes. I’ll try again next trip, because we have a great itinerary thanks to Tony and the videos.
Hi Ken, we’re sorry to hear of your experience. We travel quite a lot. Last year we were lucky enough to visit the five continents in private trips not related to this project. In all of those trips we used Airalo eSIMS. Our experience was faultless. We purchased the eSIMs using our high-speed connection at home, set everything up before departure, and when we landed in each of our destinations we just had to activate the eSIM to get internet access. We only recommend products we use and are happy with. But we accept that with any recommendation comes the risk of an unhappy experience we are sorry to hear of. It is the same with hotels, restaurants, and so no. No matter how happy we are, there will always be someone whose experience wasn’t as positive as ours. We hope your next experience, if you chose to give it another go, will be as positive as ours. All the best to you.
Here is an update: the chat never worked, but emailing them did work. They fixed everything. So, if you are having a problem, go past the chat and right to the email option. A live person helps. Thank you again for a great service. We love Zaragoza and I can add more elsewhere – everyone should go there.
Glad to hear the problem was fixed!
Hi there Tony & Ceci-
I’m visiting Spain and Italy for the first time next week for one month in total. I would so much like to use eSIM as a support to my travels. My question in setting up eSIM with specifically Airalo, as I would like to do- how does that affect my regular international roaming service that I will have with Consumer Cellular, my regular cell phone service provider here in the US? Would you happen to know if there would be a problem in having both at my disposal simultaneously? Thank you for any advice you can provide on this question.
Again Toni and Ceci-
Just to let you know, I activated my Airalo account from here on the California central coast tonight! It looks like I got a beautiful 15 percent discount on my eSIM service, plus, it now is poised and waiting to work with my international roaming service for calls & texts. What a terrific value this is turning out to be, so many thanks in advance! I will let you know how it went after my return. I’m very grateful for this excellent advice-Barbara Luis San Luis Obispo, California
Hi Barbara, great to hear you got the discount, it is offered to new clients if you open Airalo following our link. You can keep you phone service provider active for calls, but be aware there might be roaming charges involved. You data will be managed by the Airalo eSIM.
Thank you for your excellent and informative YouTube videos. We travel extensively and food is a key focus for us as it is for you two!
I wanted to also say how excellent our experience has been with Airalo-I have used it all over the world with no issues.
However, as you know, eSIMs are for data and using roaming for calls is expensive. I have recently discovered Viber Out which offers an incredibly cheap ‘cancel anytime’ subscription service for phone calls to both landlines and mobile phones.
The combination of Airalo and Viber Out keeps me completely connected when I am overseas for a very minimal cost. I highly recommend your followers investigate it!
Hello Brad. Thanks for your feedback on Airalo, we are also very happy with their eSIMS, last year we used them in the five continents! Thanks also for the Viber Out tip. We’ve never had the need for phone calls while away but it will be good for those who value having that option. All the best!
can an e sim be used in older phone with no physical sim card?
For as long as the older phone accepts e-sims, it can.