Hi from Anthony and Jodie! We are the Learners and Makers. Traveling the world full time since 2022, we empower families and people with mobility disabilities to travel confidently, their way.

Hello from Poland! Our family is in Gdansk, on the Baltic Coast, the finale for our 2026 Baltic Summer. We’re still savoring the gnocchi-style potato dumplings, mushroom sauce, and seared wild boar from the walking food tour we took throughout the pedestrian Old Town last night.

Spending more time in Europe has been a joy, especially the range of history we could learn about throughout Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and now Poland. We’ve also dodged the summer heatwaves that had affected other parts of Europe. Today, especially, we’re appreciating the cool, rainy air.

We’re also thinking more and more of the rest of the year. From time in the USA for business to a cruise to Japan, the rest of our 2026 is pretty much in focus.

Which got us thinking about something that we haven’t talked about enough:

Our phones are so essential to our travels. Above all, the sweet, sweet data that keeps us connected, whether we’re booking a rideshare around town or using Google Maps to navigate walking routes and public transit.

However, it’s not as simple as using some plan or data option from our home, USA-based mobile carrier. In fact, when we’re abroad now, we don’t use their data at all.

Our home carrier is pretty decent about international phone data… but only so much. In 2022, we’d been abroad long enough that we actually got cut off from having data. That began our journey using eSIMs when we’re abroad.

Our phones allow us to use two eSIMs at the same time. So, when out of the USA, we keep one eSIM active for our home carrier’s voice and text services. Whatever country or region we’re visiting, we then buy and activate a data-only eSIM. No card, no plan, no carrier change.

For example:

• In 2022-2023, a regional Asia eSIM kept us seamlessly connected across six countries over five months
• For staying in one country for at least a month, we find that 30-day, 5 GB data-only eSIMs are our workhorse.
• Country-specific eSIMs are a good money-saver, and we prefer saving money by getting a set amount of data instead of an unlimited package. We use data when we’re out and about. Otherwise, the Wi-Fi in our accommodation covers most of our internet needs. Experience has taught us that we typically need far less data month to month than we once thought.

We’ve been getting asked more and more about how we stay connected when traveling. After all, no one wants to overpay for international data, and your home carrier might not be the best choice. But it’s also understandable to have concerns about getting data, what it can and can’t do, and whether it’s hard to actually get and use data when abroad, so you don’t lose connection.

So this week, we’re sharing all the advice we can, based on our experiences using eSIMs since 2022. We’re also sharing the carrier we’ve used consistently and have had excellent service with, whether we’ve been in Portugal or Poland, Japan or Morocco.

​How to use an eSIM for international travel​

Save money and use cell phone data abroad

More about eSIMs

eSIMs around the world

The eSIM we use in Japan

The eSIM we used in Finland last month

Thanks for reading! See you next time, and happy travels

Anthony & Jodie

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