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[The_J]

The Catacombs?

Aaahh... had not thought of these, will have a look.

Are your tickets "skip the line"?

Don't forget the Vatican Museum while there.

I got them all from the official sources, and there's no "skip the line".
Which makes me wonder how early I need to be there to make my 10 AM tour at the Vatican.
(and obviously I'll go to the museum )

 

[warpus]

So, I'm going to be purchasing an eSIM based data+phone plan/thing once I land in Portugal. I'm researching the best brand to get. My questions are:

1. Can I get this ahead of time, from Canada? I haven't started researching this, there's too much going on. I will, but if anyone knows in the meantime, and/or recommends a course of action..

2. I will be turning off my iPhone SE Canadian SIM card so that my current Canadian number will no longer be active and reachable in Portugal.. (so I can't get accidentally charged for anything) and activating my new Portugese number whenever that happens. Is this what I should be doing?

3. Is there any specific brand or type of eSIM I should be looking for? Any place I should be avoiding getting one from? Is getting it at the airport after I land a bad idea?

I ask because I've only ever swapped out a SIM card and put in a new one, holding on to my canadian SIM temporarily while I travel. But I hate doing that cause those tiny things can easily get lost.. so an eSIM sounds like a great solution to that. But I've never used one before

 

[Birdjaguar]

So, I'm going to be purchasing an eSIM based data+phone plan/thing once I land in Portugal. I'm researching the best brand to get. My questions are:

1. Can I get this ahead of time, from Canada? I haven't started researching this, there's too much going on. I will, but if anyone knows in the meantime, and/or recommends a course of action..

2. I will be turning off my iPhone SE Canadian SIM card so that my current Canadian number will no longer be active and reachable in Portugal.. (so I can't get accidentally charged for anything) and activating my new Portugese number whenever that happens. Is this what I should be doing?

3. Is there any specific brand or type of eSIM I should be looking for? Any place I should be avoiding getting one from? Is getting it at the airport after I land a bad idea?

I ask because I've only ever swapped out a SIM card and put in a new one, holding on to my canadian SIM temporarily while I travel. But I hate doing that cause those tiny things can easily get lost.. so an eSIM sounds like a great solution to that. But I've never used one before

Who is your current carrier and do they have an international calling plan?

 

[warpus]

Who is your current carrier and do they have an international calling plan?

I'm in Canada, and as such that is not an option unless I want to pay $10+ a day. It will be much cheaper to buy an eSIM in Portugal, European mobile plans are like 18585831 times cheaper than what we have here. I'm like 99% sure anyhow.

 

[Samson]

I'm in Canada, and as such that is not an option unless I want to pay $10+ a day. It will be much cheaper to buy an eSIM in Portugal, European mobile plans are like 18585831 times cheaper than what we have here. I'm like 99% sure anyhow.

That is what I always do if I am spending any amount of time i a place, though always the physical ones.

 

[warpus]

That is what I always do if I am spending any amount of time i a place, though always the physical ones.

Yeah I always removed my Canadian SIM, put it in a secure place, then inserted the local SIM.. then put the Canadian SIM back after the plane touched down in Canada. But with an eSIM I wasn't sure how that process differs exactly. Seems like I can just disable the SIM without removing it, but am still not 100% about that and will need to do some reading.

 

[Synobun]

You can disable your physical SIM in the mobile network settings. It should just be a toggle next to the SIM.

Do you know if your phone supports eSIM? On the same settings screen, there should be an option that says something like "Add eSIM" if it supports it.

Edit: Oh, looks like they changed this within the last year. It's different now. Go to Settings > Network & Internet > SIMs. You select your current SIM and then there's a toggle. There's also no longer a standalone "Add eSIM" option. You have to press "Add SIM" and then see if the prompt offers adding an eSIM.

 

[Samson]

A question, not travel but as it came up here, is why did we ever have non-eSIMs? If you can just put some settings in the software and that works why do physical SIMs exist?

 

[The_J]

Because once upon a time they could not do this .

 

[Samson]

Because once upon a time they could not do this .

Yeah, but it is not like there has been some IT revolution which has allowed us to store numbers in computers since mobile phones were introduced. Think of the time and money that would have been saved if they had worked like that from the start. There must have been a reason why we put mobile phone credentials on their own silicon chips.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Yeah, but it is not like there has been some IT revolution which has allowed us to store numbers in computers since mobile phones were introduced. Think of the time and money that would have been saved if they had worked like that from the start. There must have been a reason why we put mobile phone credentials on their own silicon chips.

The first SIM card is from 1991.

 

[Samson]

The first SIM card is from 1991.

We have been able to store numbers in computers without having a separate chip for each number before that. We had mobile phones before that.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Physical sims made it harder for customers to mess with their phones and change companies would be my guess. I have an iPhone SE and used Ting as my carrier with a physical sim card. When I switched to a $15/month Mint Mobile plan, it came with an esim and the transition was seemless and easy.

 

[warpus]

You can disable your physical SIM in the mobile network settings. It should just be a toggle next to the SIM.

Do you know if your phone supports eSIM? On the same settings screen, there should be an option that says something like "Add eSIM" if it supports it.

Edit: Oh, looks like they changed this within the last year. It's different now. Go to Settings > Network & Internet > SIMs. You select your current SIM and then there's a toggle. There's also no longer a standalone "Add eSIM" option. You have to press "Add SIM" and then see if the prompt offers adding an eSIM.

Hmm I don't have a "Network & Internet" section in my Settings (on my iPhone SE gen 3). I can't find anything remotely like that when I use the search or scroll through.

In my Cellular section I see a way to turn off my Cellular Data.. and a way to add an eSIM.. but no way to disable the physical SIM.. which I was hoping to do right before my plane takes off. But I still haven't figured out how to do that. It seems that disabling cellular data won't be enough, as i don't want my carrier to charge me as soon as I land in Portugal or whatever. I've disabled roaming but I don't trust them, I just want the whole physical SIM disabled. Still googling and looking through to settings as to how to do that. I don't want to remove the SIM card, and then re-insert it when I return, as that defeats this whole exercise. I don't want to fumble with a tiny SIM card and make sure I don't lose it.

I bought a vodafone eSIM, but I don't think I can activate that until I arrive in Portugal/it can connect to a Portugese network. At first I thought I could maybe activate it here, before my flight, and only then will i see an option to deactive my physical SIM.. but that doesn't seem like an option either.

Physical sims made it harder for customers to mess with their phones and change companies would be my guess. I have an iPhone SE and used Ting as my carrier with a physical sim card. When I switched to a $15/month Mint Mobile plan, it came with an esim and the transition was seemless and easy.

My concern is the intermediate period. I don't want my Canadian SIM to be active in Portugal and it seems I can't activate my portugese eSIM here in Canada, ahead of time.

EDIT: It looks like you have to convert your existing SIM to an eSIM, after which the "activate this line" option shows up, which will now allow me to turn off my Canadian eSIM before the plane takes off. So, I figured it out. Wish this was all documented somewhere that's a bit easier to figure out though.. I pretty much did this on a hunch..

 

[uppi]

A question, not travel but as it came up here, is why did we ever have non-eSIMs? If you can just put some settings in the software and that works why do physical SIMs exist?

The SIM is supposed to protect your authentication key. If someone else would get access to it, they could use it for all kinds of shenanigans, which would range from listening to your conversations to billing your account. So you don't want the key to float around in some memory registers which an attacker could possibly read (worst case: remotely). These days, secure cryptoprocessors are ubiquitous. In 1990 not so much.

We have been able to store numbers in computers without having a separate chip for each number before that. We had mobile phones before that.

Yes, but mobile phones before that were analog and could be easily listened to by anyone with some radio equipment.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Traveling to Greece?

https://www.cnn.com/travel/santorini-greece-overtourism-cruise-visitor-cap

 

[Samson]

Traveling to Greece?

https://www.cnn.com/travel/santorini-greece-overtourism-cruise-visitor-cap

Cruse ships are have such an enormous carbon footprint and seem to be the worst for the destinations I do not see why any ports allow them. It just seems such low hanging fruit when it comes to emissions reduction.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Traveling to Greece?

https://www.cnn.com/travel/santorini-greece-overtourism-cruise-visitor-cap

Some the cruise channels I watch on YT agree there's a problem and something needs to be done. There are just too many people, and you basically get hemmed into follow a line and there's no time to stop and look at things that interest you. And of course in some ports the "shore excursion" is meant to herd the passengers through an outdoor market where they're going to get bombarded with sales pitches from locals and the "sight" part of the sight-seeing is actually some mediocre thing that turns out be not worth the time and extra $$$ they paid for it.

So it looks like there needs to be a major review and changes made to these shore excursions. Some should be dropped, as the promised excursion experiences just don't live up to what was actually promised, and the others need to be scaled down in number of people allowed at a time.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Cruise ships are already being limited, but more needs to be done. It is a terrible industry. Ahhh....but the money it brings.

 

[warpus]

Is November - early December a good time to visit Rome and some other Italian cities maybe south of there?