Shoutout to the guy in Chiang Mai who showed me his phone plan trick

I was paying over $80 a month for international roaming until a fellow nomad at a cafe here showed me how to get a local eSIM with 30GB for just $12. It took about 10 minutes to set up and my connection has been perfect for video calls. Has anyone found a better deal for reliable data in Southeast Asia?

3 comments

3 Comments

amy532mo ago

Seriously, that local eSIM trick is the only way to travel here now. I used to hunt for wifi like a maniac. The real pro move is getting a cheap backup SIM from a different provider, too. If you're going to a more remote island or up into the mountains, one network might drop out while the other still works. It costs like five extra bucks and saves you from ever being totally stuck.

alice_barnes352mo ago

Wait, can you even use two eSIMs at once on most phones? I thought you had to pick one to be active for data.

phoenix8451mo agoTop Commenter

Not sure if anyone mentioned this but @amy53 that dual SIM trick works even better if you grab a physical SIM for the backup instead of a second eSIM. Some older phones can't hold two eSIMs active at once, but a physical plus an eSIM runs fine on most models. Just makes the fallback more reliable if you're really going off the beaten path.