Flexible, affordable and functional: why Irish travellers prefer travel eSIM to outdated roaming
Going abroad? Plan your roaming phone spending precisely with travel eSIM technology. Set up your internet before take-off with the help of Swiss internet provider Yesim.
Only a few years ago, staying connected abroad left an Irish traveller with two options: switch on roaming and hope to dodge a frightening bill after getting home, or waste part of the holiday buying a local SIM card.
The trouble is that familiar roaming was built for a completely different era. It is too clumsy in exactly the places where a traveller needs flexibility, and it is no use at all to anyone who wants to plan their spending precisely.
Today there is a third route — travel eSIM technology. More and more people prefer to set up their internet before take-off, choosing companies such as the Swiss provider Yesim Yesim. Below, using real examples, we look at the main advantages of this approach and why classic roaming can no longer keep up with it.
Let's start with flexibility. Whether it's a weekend trip to Barcelona, a fortnight with relatives in the States or a summer tour through three countries in Asia, travel eSIM lets you choose a separate package for each of them. For example, something small and short for the weekend, something larger for a two-week trip, a regional or global plan for a route across several countries.
Another plus is a predictable price. You buy the package in advance, at home: a set number of gigabytes for the period you need, with the final price visible straight away, before you fly. There is no working out in the departure lounge how much data has already drained away, and no dreading an unpleasant surprise on the bill once you are back.
That predictability usually comes with a saving too. The Yesim European package (Europe & UK, more than 30 countries), for instance, gives unlimited data for two weeks at around €33. And a month with 10 GB in the United States costs about €14. So you are not merely avoiding a mysterious bill — you are paying less from the outset.
Functionality is where the whole system becomes properly convenient. Picture it: you step off the plane in Istanbul or Bangkok and the internet comes on in a couple of taps, because you set it up back home with no rush at all. There is no hunting for a phone shop, no queueing, no scanning your passport to buy a local SIM, no trying to explain what you need to a salesperson in a language you do not speak.
There is also a less obvious but really useful benefit: your Irish number stays reachable. Two lines run on the phone at the same time — the eSIM takes care of the internet, while your main SIM carries on receiving calls and texts.
Travel eSIM is flexible because the package is matched to the trip, predictable because the price is known before departure, and functional because it is ready to work immediately. Which raises the obvious question: why can ordinary roaming not deliver any of this?
Roaming is a single plan from your home operator, stretched across every country and every kind of trip in the same way. A weekend, a fortnight by the sea, a route through three countries — roaming serves them all identically.
On top of that, roaming terms cannot be adjusted. The moment you land, the service switches on automatically, without your involvement and without any choice of conditions. You get what the operator hands you, not what you put together for yourself beforehand.
And the further you travel, the higher the price. Within the European Union, roaming usually works as it does at home. But fly beyond the EU — to the US, Canada, the UAE or countries in Asia — and zones, limits and steep prices start to appear. It is precisely on the long-haul trip, where flexibility matters most, that complicated roaming terms are felt even more sharply.
Since travel eSIM is connectivity you set up yourself and to suit your own needs, it is worth clarifying what exactly sits behind the term. All the more so because plenty of people already have an eSIM in their phone, which is why there is often confusion over whether eSIM and travel eSIM are the same thing.
An eSIM is simply a digital chip built into the phone: every iPhone from the XS onwards has one, as do Google Pixel devices, recent Samsung and Motorola models and most current mid-range and higher Android phones. That chip makes it possible to download an operator profile without a trip to a phone shop.
Travel eSIM, on the other hand, is a service built on top of that chip. The provider supplies an app, a plan suited to your trip, technical support if something goes wrong, and tools for managing your data.
It is easier, though, to see how this works through a real example.
Yesim is a Swiss company that has been working in travel eSIM since 2019. It was founded by specialists from telecoms and IT. Today it is one of the larger players in the category — more than 4 million people use the service across 200+ destinations.
The range of plans covers almost any shape of trip. The Global Package spans upwards of 80 countries and the Global Plus Package more than 140 destinations, both suited to long journeys or multi-stop routes. There is also the Pay & Fly plan on a pay-as-you-go model: the rate per gigabyte is known in advance, and you are charged only for the data you actually use. It is the same principle of getting a clear price — for cases where the amount of data is hard to estimate ahead of time.
Behind all of this sits a network of more than 800 partner operators around the world. The app connects on its own to the strongest network available in a given region, so there is no need to get into questions of local coverage. That is how SwitchLess Networks technology works.
For families and groups of friends there is the Multiple eSIMs feature. It allows users to buy, use and manage several eSIMs at the same time within a single Yesim account.
You can set your travel eSIM up in advance, before departure. Just check that your phone is compatible, install the app and download the eSIM profile — the app will walk you step by step through every stage. All that is left is to activate the package in seconds once you land. Anyone who wants to try it first can take a test package of 500 MB for €0.50, which is enough to judge the service at a negligible cost.
Support is available in your own language around the clock, with an average response time of about five minutes. New users get 15% off their first order with the promo code GETYESIM15.
Yesim's international scale is also reflected, incidentally, in its partnership with the World Players Super League — the world's largest golf tour, which runs more than 1,800 tournaments a year in upwards of 50 countries and reaches a combined audience of over 7.5 million people.
This month you might find yourself in Morocco, as well as spending Christmas in Turkey. And each of those trips only benefits from connectivity set up specifically for it.
"Travellers today are becoming much more price-conscious. Flights, hotels, and everyday travel expenses continue to increase, especially during peak seasons," said Dmitri Verbovski, Founder and CEO of Yesim. "Reliable and straightforward internet access abroad has become a basic necessity. We believe staying connected while travelling should become simpler and more affordable, not more complicated."
Irish travellers are no longer obliged to make do with whatever their home operator provides at the moment of landing. There are now flexible and predictable options, such as travel eSIM from Yesim, which is put together in advance — at roughly the same unhurried pace as booking a hotel.
