eSim card Saily: Overview and Review
You might have heard of Saily or an eSim card or about both in your (digital nomad) travels.
E Sim cards make it way more convenient to get mobile data plans on your phone, without the need to go to a local telecom provider and get a physical sim card. This is especially true for digital nomads, who may stay in a country for a few months, but never (or not often) permanently.
Saily is an eSim service that I have been recently using which I think is really user friendly and convenient, and the prices are very decent.
In this blog post, I want to share more about Saily, what they do, and my experiences with their eSim cards and mobile data plans.
What is an eSim?
An eSim is a digital simcard that you can download to your phone, so there is not need to obtain an physical simcard. The phone needs to be eSim compatible to be able to use an eSim, but I would say, most newer phones are compatible.
You can simply activate the eSim in your destination and you will be able to have internet and make calls, depending on the plan you get.
What is Saily?
Saily is an eSim provider and app that is owned by NordVPN. This is a rather well-known company that also sells secure VPN connections.
I think Saily is a rather new service they are offering, probably having seen the popularity surge of eSim cards that is currently happening, especially with more and more people traveling to other countries for extended periods of time and needing a phone plan, but maybe not necessarily an actual local phone number.
How does it work?
You can simply download the Saily app on your phone and create an account. Then, simply choose the country you are traveling to, and select the plan you want to get and for how many days (i.e. the amount of GB you want to use).
Don’t worry about running out or choosing the wrong number of GB at the start; you can always top up via the app after if you’re running low!
Once you purchased the plan, you can download the eSim to your phone, where it will be showing up in your SIM card list in your settings.
Once you have downloaded the eSIm and you are in the country of your destination, go to your settings page and activate the eSimcard. Make sure that the eSim is the one you selected for mobile data and that roaming is switched on.
After a while, you will be connected to the local network and will be able to get online.
It’s super easy, isn’t it!
You are also able to have multiple plans for different destinations. You can select the eSim you want to view in the Saily app dropdown menu.
My experience
I’ve used Saily so far for my trips to Bali, Australia and Thailand and everything worked really well and smooth.
In Bali, it took a while for the eSim to get connected to the local network.
I was also a bit unsure when I wanted to use the first eSim, because when I wanted to activate it upon arrival in Bali, I went to my phone’s settings page, and I was somehow expecting to see a “Saily eSim”, but I only saw a “Global 1” sim card and I was a bit confused if this was actually the eSim card I had to activate.
You also need to make sure that ‘roaming’ is activated and that the APN endpoint is the correct one. This might be too much technical know-how for some users, so I think there could maybe be a better way to explain or have this done.
Review: Pros and Cons
Saily has a pretty straightforward and easy user experience, as well as having decent prices. It might not be the cheapest eSim service out there, but for the ease of use and reputability of the company behind it, I think it’s very much worth it.
Compared to the Airalo eSim services, I also think it is slightly cheaper, maybe around 5-10%, depending a bit on the country you’re getting the eSim for. I also think the user experience is slightly better and easier than Airalo - the flow was just a bit easier, because from the Saily app you can directly install the eSim on your phone with one click.
There were a few slight hick-ups, in the whole process, which are the ones mentioned in the section above. But other than that I think it’s a pretty good service. I also think the mobile network that I was connected to in each country had a good signal and fast 4G connection.
I have only ever used Airalo as another eSim card provider, so I can’t really compare it with other eSim services, like the one Revolut offers.
How to get it?
Find your plan for Saily here via this link.
You can also download the app directly via this link, and purchase an Esim directly from the app, which is the easiest way to get a Saily eSim.
Disclaimer: Some of the links in this article are affiliate links. This means that, if you buy through my links, I may earn a small commission that helps me create helpful content for the blog and it won’t cost you anything extra either, so it’s a win-win! I only recommend products if I think they will add value, so thanks for supporting Things Nomads Do!
