PHONES AND ESIMS

 

We wanted to keep our same phone numbers, so we didn't cancel our US service. Instead, we found the cheapest possible plans. 

HARD LESSONS

When we went to Europe 7 years ago, we took out our American sims and put in sim cards from those countries. And we put our phones in suspension mode. Because of this, we later got cut off from various accounts, and worse, from our bank accounts, which took a lot of trouble to rectify. So we wanted to be sure we could receive SMS messages.

SMS MESSAGES

To get my SMS messages, first I make sure I'm on wifi, then put my iPhone in airplane mode. I have to enable wifi calling for my iPhone (which works on mine because I have Prepaid AT&T, but not on Khevron's because he has Prepaid GCI). I have to make sure to turn on my US line (which I usually have turned off because I don't want to get calls while roaming, as I have no international plan).

ESIMS

Now they have eSIMs, where you can just "install" a SIM by using an app. My phone, the iPhone XR, is a little older. I think it only has 2 sims, but Khevron's has like 24 slots (or something) for eSIMs. We chose Airalo and downloaded it. They had very affordable plans, and they come from different vendors, so you have to look around. 

But as far as I can tell, most of them just offer data, not an actual phone service (though I think they can). 

I bought a 2-week eSIM for Japan with 2 GB of data on it. I'd hoped that would be enough; however, it got used up in two days. So, I had to top up my data, which I did, for $25, I bought 20 more GB of data. But it was just for Japan. I discovered that had I looked around, there were Asia eSims that worked in all Asian countries. Khevron bought one of those.

USE DATA SLOWER

I used several methods to cut down on my data use. First, I went into the Cellular section of my system and set almost all my apps not to use cellular. Also, I often simply turned off the Cellular function when I didn't need it. This saved a lot of data, so that by the end of our two weeks in Japan, I still had a lot of data left. 

After that, I simply bought an Asia eSIM. So far, I've used 1.25 GB of data, and we've been here in South Korea for about a week. And I have 20 GB of data for Asia, so it will go a lot further this time.

MAPS DON'T NEED DATA

Another trick, if you don't have a lot of data,  is to set your destination on your map, let it load in all the data, then turn off your cellular. Even without data, the Maps app will follow the route and show you where you are. That's a nice hack.