Over the last 4 years, this eSIM has saved me countless dollars and headaches while traveling

In 2015, I found myself walking with a friend at 3 AM to a Walmart in the middle of nowhere, Las Vegas, because we had just landed and really needed prepaid SIM cards for an 8 AM press conference. Unfortunately, Walmart’s SIM card display was locked, and the night shift clerk didn’t have the key, making this entire story a badge of honor and horror. (Off-strip Vegas on foot at 3 AM isn’t an experience I want to relive.) In 2014, a year before that, I sat for two hours on a bench in the middle of Stephansplatz, Vienna, trying to decipher what the Austrian messages I was receiving on my new prepaid SIM said and how on earth I could activate the data plan to go online, all in a language that was absolutely foreign to me without access to Google Translate.

Getting connected while traveling has always been a challenge, but things changed a few years ago when eSIMs started making their way. Suddenly, I could install a secondary eSIM on my compatible phone in addition to my primary SIM card, without inserting a physical card, going to any store, or talking to any rep. And I could get online in a matter of seconds, no unnecessary activation wait times or undecipherable messages.