How much data do you need abroad?

Those three bands cover most trips. The rest of this guide is what pushes a trip from one band into the next, and how to tell before buying a pack — the trip-type table further down usually settles it in one look.

Some of these numbers surprise people — scrolling costs more than almost anything else on the list, more even than a lot of video calling.

• Download offline maps of the city before flying — navigation then costs almost nothing.
• Set app stores and photo backup to Wi-Fi-only — the two silent gigabyte-eaters.
• Disable autoplay on Instagram, TikTok and X — feeds pre-load video nobody watches.
• Download playlists and episodes on hotel Wi-Fi instead of streaming them in transit.
• Voice-message instead of video-calling when the connection is expensive or thin.
• Pause cloud sync for large apps (Photos, Drive) while on the pack, and let it resume automatically back on Wi-Fi.

None of these cost anything or take longer than a boarding queue to set up. Doing even two of them usually moves a trip down a full band.

Every destination offers 1 / 3 / 5 / 10 / 20 / 50 GB packs, each valid 30 days from first connection. Sizing one of those correctly matters more than anything else in this guide.

• Start one size smaller than the fear. A top-up is one tap from the balance — running out is a two-minute fix, and a far smaller cost than overbuying.
• The per-GB price drops as the pack gets bigger — heavy users save by buying the larger size up front.
• Multi-country trip? A regional plan beats juggling a separate local pack at every border, especially where one would otherwise have to be bought from scratch — see one eSIM for multiple countries.

The three bands above assume a fairly average mix. Some trips skew hard in one direction — a week in Thailand leaning on hotel Wi-Fi looks nothing like the same week with a laptop tethered daily. The table below turns that difference into a starting size.

Hotspotting a laptop off the eSIM is standard and works the same as tethering off any SIM — but a laptop is a hungrier client than a phone, mostly because of what runs in the background without being asked. None of that shows up on a phone doing the same tasks.

• OS and app updates can silently burn a gigabyte or more the moment a laptop joins a network — a setting worth checking before the first connection, not after the pack is half gone.
• Video calls on a laptop default to a higher resolution than a phone call does, so a stretch of meetings adds up faster than expected.
• A tablet along for the ride effectively adds a second device’s worth of backups and updates — plan for it the same way a second phone would be planned for.

The fastest way to size a pack accurately is to look at a habit already in place, rather than guess at a new one.

1. 01
   Check last month’s usage at home

   iOS: Settings → Cellular, scroll to app-by-app usage. Android: Settings → Network & internet → Data usage. That number, divided by four, is a rough weekly baseline.

2. 02
   Add for the apps that change abroad

   Maps replace transit apps, translation apps get heavier use, and photo-taking usually increases — nudge the baseline up, not down.

3. 03
   Subtract for Wi-Fi coverage at the destination

   A hotel-heavy itinerary needs less than a trip spent mostly outdoors or in transit.

1. 01
   Check the dashboard

   The order page shows what’s left on the current pack, updated as data is used — no app install and no login beyond the access token already used to buy it.

2. 02
   Set a phone-side warning too

   iOS: Settings → Cellular → track usage by period. Android: Settings → Network & internet → Data usage → set a warning and a limit.

3. 03
   Top up before it hits zero

   Running out mid-afternoon just means one more tap from the same balance — not a new QR code, and the same pack simply continues.

The cost of guessing wrong in either direction is small: a top-up on one side, a few unused GB on the other. Guessing wrong about the phone itself is the mistake worth avoiding entirely — that’s a compatibility question, not a sizing one.

• Anyone posting video regularly — uploads cost more than the scrolling that inspires them, and a single short clip can cost more than a day of ordinary use.
• Remote workers on camera most of the day — video calls are the single heaviest ordinary-use activity in the table above, and an afternoon of back-to-back meetings adds up the way a movie would.
• Groups sharing one hotspot — the pack has to cover every device attached to it, not just the one holding it.
• Multi-country trips run on one plan — sizing changes when the destination does, so check the per-leg numbers rather than assuming one pack covers everything.

Everyone else — a solo traveler mostly texting, mapping and checking email — tends to overbuy out of a fear that turns out to be about 5 GB more than a normal week actually needs. That fear is worth naming, since naming it is usually enough to buy correctly the first time.