Away With The Steiners

Holafly eSIM Review 2024: Can you really roam AND stay connected?

Sarah Steiner

Are you looking at how to stay connected in your travels and thinking about buying a Holafly eSIM unlimited data plan? Here is our complete and (very) honest Holafly eSIM review.

We have been using Holafly eSIMs across Europe, North Africa and Asia for the last two years of fulltime travel.  

We had loads of questions before connecting with our first eSIM.  It seems like a long time ago (and a whole lot of new countries explored) since we first connected with Holafly.  But now in this Holafly review and eSIM guide we can answer those pesky questions and share our (honest) Holafly eSIM review. 

The rabbit hole of staying connected as a traveller. (And why you should keep reading). 

The reality is there are many (lots and plenty) companies now that offer eSIMs and data packages to stay connected while you travel.  But the second reality is that they can be very expensive.  But assuming you’re here to find out the best value eSIM and how you can get unlimited data with an eSIM; you’ve come to the right page. 

We have been traveling fulltime as a family for five years around the world.  That’s a lot of travel.  And a lot of SIM cards.  And it’s also a lot of hindsight and expense that could have been saved if we had known about eSIMs and how to get unlimited data with Holafly. 

There are lots of companies that compete for your dollars in all directions as a traveller.  

But here is our Holafly eSIM Review and why we recommend using Holafly for your travels. 

Read on to find out why… 

Or, if you are here for the Discount Code then here it is:

Arriving in a new country at some hour of the night with bags (and kids) to wrangle and the last thing we feel like is queueing for a new SIM card…

Who – or what – is Holafly? 

Holafly is a communications provider founded in Spain in 2018.  The company Holafly now offers eSIMs for travellers in over 190 destinations and for all types of travellers from short-term holiday makers, frequent business travellers to long-term and fulltime digital nomads. 

As a company Holafly doesn’t own or manage a physical telecommunications network.  

Rather, Holafly eSIMs partner with local mobile networks all over the world. 

And – as a seriously standout feature of Holafly that differentiates the brand from the rest – is that in June 2022 Holafly became the first in the eSIM industry to offer unlimited data caps for travel eSIMs. 

Welcome to Holafly.

What exactly is an eSIM? 

A regular SIM card is a physical plastic card containing microchips that enable your phone to make and receive calls and connect to wireless internet.  

An eSIM does exactly the same and connects a device to access wireless internet, send and receive text messages and enables your phone to make and receive calls.  But it isn’t a physical product.  Instead, it connects your device as a ‘virtual SIM’. 

The ‘e’ of the word eSIM stands for ‘embedded’.  This means that the eSIM is embedded in the technology of your phone as opposed to being physically placed into your device to connect. 

For travellers now, eSIMs really have taken the world by storm.  

The fact you can now connect virtually instead of needing to queue up arriving at some awful hour of the day in a new destination to decipher the best tourist SIM card to buy is game changing.  

It has revolutionized the ease of being connected in travel. 

Why an eSIM is an awesome answer to your travelling and connectivity woes

Sometimes traveling to a new destination and rocking up to the airport to get a physical SIM card for a new place works out smoothly.  But – and that’s a very big ‘BUT’ – there are many times when you just want the dam SIM card and to get connected and the headache is much more than you bargained for.  

We have been those people. Arriving in a new country at goodness knows what hour and lining up to join the other travellers queueing for a SIM.  It can take hours.  And then there’s the language barrier.  But at the end of the day, you are without connection for as long as it takes.  And the choice of doing anything about it is beyond your control. 

Well, that was until we discovered eSIMs. 

I mean, we didn’t discover them.  But the day we first tried an eSIM was like it opened a whole new world of connectivity for our travels. 

An eSIM means you can be prepared.  You can purchase the package before you travel and set it ready to go from the comfort of your home.  (Or home-base, wherever you are). 

And with an eSIM set up it is ready to connect as soon as you arrive and all you need to do is turn it on in a new destination. 

It’s a game changer. 

Navigating Budapest after crossing the border from Slovakia to Hungary meant we needed maps ASAP.

And how does an eSIM work? 

An eSIM uses preinstalled software and a built-in chip already on your device to do exactly what a physical SIM would.  It enables you to connect to a mobile network, make and receive calls and provides mobile data.  

To start using an eSIM you need to buy a data plan online and activate it on your device.

Once the eSIM is activated on your phone it will connect and work just as a traditional SIM does. 

Why is an eSIM good for travel? Is it better than a physical SIM card? 

With an eSIM it is programmed remotely, and you can skip the hassle of swapping out a physical SIM card.  

This is a biggie for travelers and has really made a huge difference o the convenience of connecting online for travelers, nomads and holiday-makers. 

For us, we’ve been traveling fulltime as a family now for more than five years.  In the last five years with the introduction and growing popularity of eSIMs it has totally transformed how we travel.  

We particularly love off-the-beaten-track travel and often the destinations we chose are more complicated getting a SIM.  This could be due to the language barrier (Iran) or the remoteness of arriving overland (Mauritania).  Or it can just be the hassle of queuing for hours (Bangladesh) at a mobile provider to try and register for a physical SIM card just to get connected (Cook Islands, India).  

With an eSIM you can set it up before you even depart for your trip (or cross the border) and have it ready to activate as soon as you land or arrive. 

Because even in the village in Bangladesh we needed to stay connected.

Who is the Holafly eSIM for?

As travellers ourselves there are many reasons we have come to love using Holafly’s eSIM cards in our travels.  One of the main factors is that most of their plans have options for unlimited data so you don’t find yourself running out partway through your trip or having to concentrate to budget your data as you go. 

And it is one of the few brands of eSIM cards on the market that offer this option.  

It really suits us and works for us in all styles of travel whether we are overlanding in Europe by motorhome and in need of a regional connection for the internet.  Or those times when we arrive in a new country and just want to be able to find our accommodation without waiting any longer at the airport. 

Plus, the Holafly eSIM is something you purchase in advance and there are no hidden costs or potential misunderstandings as there might be signing on for a visitor contract or connecting to a mobile network whilst fumbling with a language barrier. 

Where is Holafly available? 

Holafly offers prepaid eSIM cards in more than 200 destinations and 140+ with unlimited data including Europe, Mexico, China, Turkey, Japan, and the USA.

There are also Holafly eSIM cards with limited data plans for other destinations and top-ups for extra data. 

Using the last of our battery – but not the last of our data – trekking in the Himalayas in Nepal.

Unlimited Data Plans (3G/4G/LTE).  Is the Holafly eSIM truly with unlimited data?

Yes.  Holafly offers unlimited data in more than 140 destinations.

These include:

Even the website remarks that with the unlimited data SIMs in these destinations you can travel with complete peace of mind as you’re always covered.  

See more below in our Holafly review about our experience with the unlimited data Europe Holafly eSIM. 

Costs. Purchasing a Holafly eSIM. 

Ultimately the costs are always (pretty much?) the deciding factor in a traveler’s budget.  And yup, that’s veraciously us too.  

We’ve been on the road a long time, more than five years now traveling as a family and for us the need to be connected is vital for work, school, family and just general travel planning.  (We need it for everything!).  But the costs are a big decisive factor in purchasing data for travel.  

The cost of Holafly’s eSIMs are influenced by where you are heading and how long you plan to stay connected.  But you can confidently say goodbye to Data Roaming charges from your home country and count your savings right from the start.

Let’s have a look. 

Here are some of costs of purchasing a Holafly eSIM for a specific destination.  

ESTONIA 

Get a Holafly eSIM with unlimited data for Estonia. 

MOROCCO 

Get a Holafly eSIM with unlimited data for Morocco. 

ARMENIA

Get a Holafly eSIM with unlimited data for Armenia. 

Data packages range from 5 days to 90 days with unlimited data. And there is the possibility to add custom days in destinations such as Switzerland, UK, China and Turkey.

Where do you want to go? Connect to the internet in minutes in more than 197 destinations around the world.

Costs. Where are the Holafly Regional packages for? 

Without doubt (in our Holafly review opinion) the best value for money with a Holafly eSIM is the regional eSIM package options. 

These offer great econonomy for your dollar with the added ease of changing country and not having the hassle of changing a physical SIM card on arrival. 

Here are some of the Holafly eSIM Regional Plans: 

There are many more options available on the Holafly website for regional eSIMs that are customizable for the exact number of days for your travels. 

Would you have known where to eat in Prague if not for following Google Maps?

Our Holafly eSIM Review. Where have we traveled and can honestly offer a Holafly review? 

We have been traveling in Europe for two years in our motorhome and we have visited every country in the European mainland using the Europe Holafly eSIM in all directions of Europe.   

I looked back at where we had been and how many European countries we could confidently offer a Holafly review of the Europe eSIM they offer (and how cool is this?!).  

We have used the Holafly eSIM in 28 COUNTRIES IN EUROPE! 

Add to that our travels in the last two years to destinations like Armenia and Georgia or Morocco and we’ve covered quite a lot of Holafly ground in Europe and surrounding countries and Asia and Africa. 

And in case you are wondering about our (honest) Holafly review of said countries; it’s truly been great.  We work online with our website, YouTube channel, socials and Group Trips and that means a lot of connection is needed.  And our experience with Holafly eSIM has been positive. 

Holafly offers to get you connected wherever you go, and it truly delivers. 

It rocks the delivery in fact!   

Our personal Holafly eSIM review. Purchasing a data plan. 

One of the (another) great things about the Holafly eSIM that we can confidently add to our Holafly review is the flexibility to select a custom number of days.  

For example, traveling in Europe we purchased exactly 71 days for the regional Europe Holafly eSIM which meant we didn’t waste money buying unnecessary days that we didn’t’ need. 

The Holafly website is easy to use.  There is a large list of frequently asked questions as well more reviews and information about the company in general. 

And it is straightforward to top-up if you need more days and plans change.

Our personal Holafly eSIM review. Connectivity and internet speed. 

I admit we were a little skeptical purchasing the ‘unlimited data’ plan for Europe on a regional eSIM package.  It is always anyone’s first question when you mention unlimited data and whether there is any data throttling.  But we didn’t notice any.  We were extremely happy with Holafly’s performance.  

We found the regional Holafly eSIM connected with a good speed (mostly 5G with some 4G/LTE).  

The eSIM takes a few minutes to change onto the new network when you cross a border overland in Europe.  And if need be, you can manually connect it quicker (or counter the impatience at least) by toggling the ‘Automatic’ network selection on your device.  

Overall our Holafly eSIM review is extremely positive.

What about the challenge with tethering? Can you hotspot with a Holafly eSIM?

Yes!  This has always been one of the less favorable parts of choosing some eSIMs over a physical SIM card.  But not anymore.  It is possible to hotspot with many of the Holafly eSIM cards.  

This wasn’t always the case.  And it isn’t compatible with every package and destination plan.  But for us with the Europe eSIM we found we could hotspot/tether with devices in our family and share data with the Holafly eSIM.  

With the Europe Holafly eSIM you can share up to 500MB of data per day across devices.  

Connected and tethering somewhere in Romania to edit the last of our Morocco YouTube videos.

A handy (very) troubleshooting trick with the Holafly eSIM

I admit I did initially think I was somewhat of a tech genius and had discovered an unknown tech-hack to fix any connection problems arriving to a new country with an eSIM…

Turns out it is a known trick.  But if when you arrive somewhere new and are trying to connect your Holafly eSIM and it isn’t working.  First check that you have switched on ‘Data Roaming’.  (This is a known tip for setting up the eSIM as it won’t work without that toggled).  

If it still isn’t connecting or it’s slow to connect (or you are impatient).  Open the settings for the mobile eSIM on your device and switch the toggle button for ‘Automatic’. 

I discovered (thought I had discovered) that you can choose the network provider manually which often solves the issue.

Need more help?

So does the Holafly eSIM work on every phone? 

The technology for eSIMs is quite new and not all devices are compatible.  

To check if you can use eSIMs in your phone or device you can see the updated list of compatible devices on the Holafly website.  Or you can check in the settings of your device. 

To check if your iOS or Android device supports eSIM technology varies slightly between brands.  

In general, the steps are like the following: 

If the option to ‘Add eSIM’ is available, it most likely means that your device supports eSIMs.  

But in any case, it’s always best to check before buying an eSIM.  

How do I know if my phone is compatible? 

You can check on the Holafly website to confirm if your smartphone is compatible with eSIM technology. 

We both use iPhones and have found it convenient and easy to use the Holafly eSIM.  (Even if I do admit we needed help from Holafly to set one up the first time!). 

Phones are for filming and navigation crossing the bridge from Sweden to Denmark.

And the verdict? Would we recommend a Holafly eSIM for international travel? 

Yes.  Definitely.  We have been using Holafly eSIMs for over two years of travel in Europe, North Africa and Asia.  And we can honestly say we have found it to be the best option as digital nomads for unlimited data and ease of connection, particularly in Europe. 

Although their upfront cost is typically higher than with other providers, they truly do give you unlimited data.  And if you are on the road for an extended holiday or traveling fulltime or longterm like us, the affordability is crucial.  

That’s eight thumbs up from us! 

Useful links for your travels in Europe and beyond…

These are the companies we use while traveling fulltime as a family and that we would recommend to anyone planning and booking travel. 

Read more about travel in Europe.

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