You know the drill … and you hate it as much as I do. Alighting in some new country and then tethering yourself to every third coffee shop just to steal a bit of WiFi since your phone won’t catch internet while you’re wandering local streets … unless you’re willing to sell a kidney to afford your carrier’s usurious international roaming charges. I was on a trip through Hong Kong when I first learned about Airalo – an e-SIM that downloads directly to your smartphone through the Airalo app.

Suddenly, I was a local, meandering through the miasma of smells – supreme to rancid – that define Hong Kong, never out of WiFi range for even a second because my iPhone was tapped into Hkmobile … for a week … for just $5 USD. If you have a smartphone that can handle an e-SIM, Airalo is the only way to travel abroad.