Essential Family Travel Tech: How eSIMs Keep You Connected Abroad in 2026
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Ever since the children got their own phones, staying connected when we travel has been of high importance to us and something the children always make sure we’ve sorted out ahead of any holiday.
Why connectivity matters when travelling with children
When travelling with children, staying connected isn’t just about them being able to keep in touch with their friends, use social media and scroll through endless trash online. It’s more about making sure that, as a family, we are always contactable, that if we get split up or lost that we can easily find our way back to each other and ensuring we have as positive a holiday experience as possible.
Being online whilst abroad means we can instantly find suitable public transport routes, research the best restaurants, see what attractions are nearby and navigate to where we’re going seamlessly. It also means that if an emergency arises we can deal with it straight away.
For years we had to reply on public wifi or expensive roaming charges whilst abroad. But now we always invest in eSIMs from Yesim when we go away.
What is an eSIM and how does it work?
Short for embedded SIM, an eSIM is a digital SIM card that is built directly into your device’s hardware. This means that you don’t need to insert or swap a physical SIM card to connect to a mobile network. For all intents and purposes, you’ll use your phone as normal but, behind the scenes, the eSIM that you have subscribed to is doing all the work for you – using local data and networks to save you having high roaming costs.
To use the eSIM you don’t need a physical card. Instead you download the service provider profile onto your device or use the provider’s app and the eSIM starts to work pretty much straight away.
Most newer phones, tablets and even things like Apple watches are compatible with eSIM technology, helping to keep you connected wherever you are in the world, using your devices the way you’re used to with very little disruption.
The benefits of eSIMs for family holidays
We’ve found eSIMs to be a great investment when travelling as a family. You don’t have to buy local SIM cards – or traipse around looking for somewhere that sells them. You’re connected soon after arriving at your new destination and you can even stay connected when travelling through different destinations if you’re inter railing, island hopping or doing a road trip across America.
Plus, with an eSIM you can have separate data plans for different family members – giving everyone the right amount of data depending on how much they’re using their devices – much like you have at home. And, your regular SIM is still available for calls and texts whenever your normal service is supported.
eSIM vs roaming vs physical SIM
Having been travelling for a long time now, and travelling for over ten years as a family, we have found that using an eSIM is a really convenient and cost effective way of staying connected abroad compared to getting local, physical SIM cards at each destination or using our normal network’s roaming service.
Using an eSIM is also super simple to set up and has great coverage. Before eSIMs, often on holidays we would set the children’s devices to only be usable on wifi – stopping them from running up huge roaming bills – but, an eSIM negates that worry whilst still giving them access to everything they’re used to on their phone or tablet.
How to choose the right family eSIM
When looking for an eSIM for your family you have to make sure that it will work in your destination, that it includes enough data for your needs and that it’s valid for the duration that you’ll need it. We have spent a few extended holidays in the US and have found that many eSIM providers do a 7 or 15 day option which will cover most typical holidays but, we’ve had to take out extended 30 day ones a couple of times.
It’s also good to check what sort of network coverage and network speeds are offered, whether you can enable hotspot usage on your device and what the eSIM provider’s customer service is like too just in case you run into any issues.
How to set up an eSIM before travelling
Setting up an eSIM is generally quite straightforward but definitely something you should do just before you depart on vacation.
Before buying the eSIM, make sure that your device is compatible and decide how much data you need. You can then buy the plan, make sure you’re connected to wifi and install the eSIM. eSIMs always come with clear step by step instructions so this isn’t as scary as it sounds!
Choose the eSIM for mobile data, check your roaming settings and test everything works before you leave – and then you know you’ll be good to go as soon as you step off the plane.
eSIMs have saved us so much stress when we travel and give us extra peace of mind, helping us to keep our children safe and contactable wherever we are in the world. eSIMs are now just one extra thing that we organise when we travel, along with all the other essential travel tech we’ve accumulated over the years – power banks, travel adapters, extension leads and charging hubs and offline map downloads!
There’s so much to think about when you travel, especially as a family, and once you’ve used an eSIM once or twice you will never look back – it’ll be something you organise every time you travel without even thinking about it.
Find out more about eSIMs over on the Yesim website.
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