Shore Leave Tech Checklist: 12 Things Before You Go

Updated 26 August 2026 · shore-leave, port-calls, connectivity, crew-life

Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you buy through them we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you — it never changes which product we recommend.

A working shore leave tech checklist comes down to twelve checks you run before the gangway, and most of them take under two minutes each. Charge your phone to full and carry a power bank. Activate data before you leave ship WiFi. Download offline maps and your terminal location. Photograph your seaman's book and passport page. Save the agent's number and the last-boat time as an alarm. Everything else in this article is the detail behind those twelve.

I have watched a second engineer miss a bus back to a terminal in Rotterdam because his phone died at 40 percent in the cold and he had no offline map, no cash and no agent number written anywhere except in a chat app he could not open. Four hours of shore leave turned into a very expensive taxi and an uncomfortable conversation with the master. None of that needed to happen.

Almost every shore leave that goes wrong follows the same pattern as that evening. One thing fails, usually the battery or the data. Every backup lived inside the phone, so they all fail with it. The checklist below breaks that chain. If any single thing fails, you still have a second way home.

The 12-point checklist in short

Run this in the cabin before you head for the gangway. The whole thing takes about fifteen minutes the first time and five minutes after that.

Items 1 to 7 are about getting back. Items 8 to 10 are about money. Items 11 and 12 are about the people you will need to talk to, ashore and at home. If you only have time for one group, do the first one.

The rest of this article explains the ones that are more than a tick box.

Power comes first, because everything else needs it

Your phone is the single point of failure for the whole shore leave, so treat battery as the first item. A modern phone with data roaming on, screen bright in sunlight and maps running will drain in three to four hours of real use. Add cold weather and lithium cells lose a chunk of usable capacity below about five degrees Celsius. That 60 percent you left the ship with can read 15 percent by the time you want a taxi.

The fix is boring and it works. Charge the phone to full before you leave, carry a power bank of at least 10,000 mAh, and carry the cable that actually charges your phone fast. The free one from a hotel usually charges at a crawl. A 10,000 mAh bank gives most phones two full charges, which covers any realistic day ashore. Our tested power bank picks for seafarers cover capacity, airline limits and which units survive a contract in more detail.

Keep the power bank in an inside pocket in cold ports. Same physics as the phone, a cold bank delivers less.

Choosing the bank size

A bigger bank is tempting, but it rarely helps on shore leave. Here is how the common sizes work out for a day ashore.

Airlines usually let you carry lithium batteries up to 100 Wh in the cabin without special approval. Spare power banks must go in hand luggage and never in the hold. A 10,000 mAh bank with typical 3.7 volt cells works out at about 37 Wh, so it will not cause trouble at airport security when you sign off. Airlines can add their own rules on top, so read the label on your bank and check with the airline before you fly home.

Cut the background drain before you go

Three settings eat battery ashore without giving you anything back:

1. Cloud photo backup. It starts uploading as soon as it sees mobile data, and a week of engine room pictures will eat both your battery and your data allowance. Pause it.
2. Background app refresh. It lets every app check in over a weak signal, and a phone hunting for signal near steel terminals works hard. Turn it off for everything except maps and messaging.
3. Auto brightness. In bright sun it goes to maximum. Set it by hand to a level you can still read.

A weak signal also costs more battery than a strong one, because the radio raises its power to reach a distant mast. In a terminal surrounded by stacked containers, a weak signal is normal. That is one more reason the three to four hour figure above can be optimistic in a port area.

One small habit that saves the day

Switch the phone to low power mode as you step off the gangway, before you need it. It costs you nothing on a day when you are mostly walking and messaging, and it typically buys two extra hours. Turn it off if you need the camera properly.

Get your data working before you lose ship WiFi

Activate and test any eSIM or travel plan while you are still on ship WiFi, because most eSIM activations need an internet connection to install the profile. This is the single most common mistake I see. Crew buy a plan in the terminal car park, then discover the QR code needs data to download the profile, and there is no free WiFi anywhere.

The sequence that works:

1. Install the eSIM profile in the cabin on ship WiFi, a day before arrival if the plan allows it.
2. Switch the line on when you are within coverage, usually as the ship comes alongside.
3. Send one test message over mobile data with WiFi turned off, so you know it genuinely works.
4. Check which line is set as default for data, because phones love to default back to your home SIM and start roaming at home rates.

Step four is where the money goes. A home SIM roaming in Europe or Asia can burn through a lot in a few hours if maps and photo backup are running. Turn data roaming off on the home line and leave only the travel line active.

Which plan to buy depends heavily on your route and how many countries a rotation touches. Our side-by-side test of the two most common crew options is in Airalo versus Holafly for port calls, and the broader comparison of what actually holds up between calls is in the best eSIM options for seafarers. Airalo is the one I install first, since it covers the largest country list. As of August 2026, the regional packages that suit most rotations cost roughly 5 to 20 US dollars per week of light use. I have not rechecked every package since then and eSIM prices change often, so treat that range as a guide and check the current pricing page before you buy.

If your phone is not eSIM capable, a local physical SIM from a terminal kiosk is still fine. Budget twenty minutes and bring your passport, because most countries now require ID registration.

Check that your phone can take an eSIM at all

Two things can stop an eSIM before you even buy one. The first is hardware. Most flagship phones from the last few years support eSIM, but plenty of budget models and some regional versions do not. On many phones, dialling *#06# shows an EID number next to the IMEI if the phone has an eSIM chip. The settings menu will also show an "add eSIM" option under mobile or cellular. The second is a carrier lock. A phone bought on contract from a home network may refuse any other operator's SIM, eSIM or physical. Ask your network to unlock it while you are still at home, because doing it from sea by email can take weeks.

eSIM, local SIM, roaming or ship WiFi: which one for this call

There are five realistic ways to get data ashore, and the right one changes from call to call. A short call at a terminal near town needs something different from three days alongside in a country you have never visited.

Holafly is the best known of the unlimited data eSIM providers. It suits crew who spend several days alongside and want to video call home without counting megabytes. For the usual six to twelve hour port call, a capped regional package from Airalo has been the cheaper choice for me, because you rarely use more than a gigabyte or two in that time. The comparison linked above has the full head-to-head and current plan details.

Offline maps are the item people regret skipping

Download the offline map for the entire port region, including the outskirts, because container and bulk terminals frequently sit ten to thirty kilometres outside the mapped urban area. Google Maps offline areas cover a rectangle you draw yourself, so drag it wide enough to include the terminal, the road back and the town.

Two things to do beyond the download itself:

1. Pin the exact gate you use. The port authority address is often kilometres away from the gate your shuttle drops you at. Drop a pin on the real gate, name it "GATE, ship", and it survives with no signal.
2. Screenshot the route back. A screenshot works when everything else fails, including a dead data plan or an app update that decides to log you out.

Offline maps also help when you have signal but almost no bandwidth. Port areas are notorious for one bar of overloaded coverage. Our tested offline maps for shore leave covers which apps hold up with no connection, including transit and translation.

Save the terminal name in the local language too. A taxi driver in Yokohama or Busan will recognise the local script far faster than an English transliteration, and having it as a screenshot means you can simply show the phone.

What offline maps can and cannot do

Google Maps offline areas give you the street map, place names and driving directions with no signal. They do not give you live traffic. In most regions they also leave out public transport routes and any directions that rely on live data. That matters if your plan is to take a city bus back to the terminal. Look up the bus number and the stop name while you still have WiFi, and screenshot the evening timetable.

Offline areas update themselves over WiFi and can expire if the phone goes a long time without refreshing them. A map you downloaded at the start of a nine month contract may have expired by the time you reach that port again. Open the offline maps list a day before arrival and check the date.

Some crew want maps that stay fully offline with no account at all. Apps built on OpenStreetMap data, such as Organic Maps, download whole regions and give walking directions with no signal. Their coverage of terminal roads is often better than you would expect, because port workers and volunteer mappers have added them over the years. I keep one as a second map app for the day Google decides to log me out.

The pin list I save for every port

Before an unfamiliar call I save five pins in a list named after the port: the terminal gate, the seafarers' centre if there is one, the nearest bank ATM in town, a pharmacy, and the place the shuttle or launch leaves from. Five pins take two minutes. On a day when something goes wrong, they answer the first five questions you will have.

Talk your way through it: the translation pack

Item 11 is the one people skip because it feels optional, until a taxi driver shrugs at their English. While you are on ship WiFi, download the offline language pack for the country you are visiting. Google Translate and Microsoft Translator both offer offline packs for the major languages, and each pack is usually a few dozen megabytes.

Camera translation is the feature you will actually use ashore. Point the phone at a bus timetable, a menu, a pharmacy label or a sign at the terminal gate, and the app lays a translation over the text. With the offline pack installed, a basic version works with no signal, though the quality is lower than online.

For any unfamiliar port, save three phrases in the local language as screenshots:

1. The terminal name with "please take me here".
2. "I am a seafarer, my ship is at this terminal."
3. "Where is the nearest ATM?"

Showing a screenshot is faster than typing into an app while someone waits. It also works with the phone in airplane mode, which saves battery.

Documents: what to photograph and where to keep it

Photograph your passport photo page, your seaman's book, your visa or shore pass and your vaccination card, then store the images somewhere that opens without internet. Your phone's local photo album counts. A cloud folder set to "available offline" counts. A link to a cloud folder does not count.

Why this matters ashore. Gate security sometimes wants to see the document you left in the ship's safe. Hotels and clinics ask for passport details. If you lose the physical document, having a clear photo turns a two-day consular problem into a shorter one. Police in several countries will accept a photo plus your shore pass for a routine street check.

Keep the images in a folder separate from your main camera roll, so you are not scrolling past a hundred engine room photos while someone in uniform waits.

The full list worth photographing

Most crew photograph the passport and stop there. The documents below are the ones I have actually been asked for ashore, or needed after something went wrong.

1. Passport photo page, plus any visa page for the country you are in.
2. Seaman's book or seafarer identity document, the page with your photo and details.
3. Shore pass or landing permit, if the port issued one for this call.
4. Vaccination card, including yellow fever where the region requires it.
5. Your entry on the crew list, if the agent or master is happy for you to have it, since it ties you to the vessel.
6. The agent's business card or letter, showing the agency name and address in the local language.
7. Medical insurance or P&I contact details, so a clinic knows who pays.
8. Prescriptions for any medication you take regularly, with the generic drug name, since brand names differ between countries.

The photos are only a backup. Gate security and immigration will normally want the original or the shore pass, so carry whatever the agent or the master tells you to carry and keep the images as insurance.

Keep them locked but reachable

You are weighing two risks: a stolen phone exposing your documents, and a lost passport taking longer to replace. A screen lock with a proper PIN plus a locked or hidden album covers most of the first risk. Most phones now offer a locked folder that opens only with your face, fingerprint or PIN. Avoid sending document photos to yourself in a messaging app, because chat backups end up in places you do not control.

Money: cards, cash and the thing that fails at 22:00

Carry one card that reliably works abroad plus a small amount of local cash, because terminal shuttles, port buses and small shops in many countries still refuse cards. The amount does not need to be large. The equivalent of thirty to fifty US dollars covers a taxi back and food.

Three practical points:

1. Tell your bank you are travelling, or use a card built for it. A card that blocks on a foreign transaction at 22:00 in an unfamiliar country is a bad evening.
2. Check ATM fees before you withdraw. Terminal and airport ATMs are consistently the worst rate you will find that day.
3. Carry a backup card in a different pocket. Separate from the first one, so one lost wallet is not the whole problem.

Which card actually costs less over a contract depends on where you spend and how you convert. We compared the two most common crew choices in Wise versus Revolut for seafarers, including the fee behaviour people usually discover after the fact.

Which way to pay ashore

Pay attention to the phone wallet row. Tapping your phone is convenient until the battery dies, and then you are standing at a taxi rank with no way to pay. Always carry at least one physical card and the cash for the ride back.

The dynamic currency conversion trap

When a card terminal or ATM abroad asks whether you want to pay in your home currency or the local one, choose the local currency. If you pick your home currency, the terminal operator sets the exchange rate, and that rate is reliably worse than the one your card would use. Seeing a familiar number on the screen feels safer, and you pay extra for that feeling every time. The same applies to ATMs that offer to "lock in" a conversion rate.

Public WiFi ashore and why a VPN belongs in your pocket

Most of the WiFi you find ashore is open: the seafarers' centre, a cafe near the port, a hotel lobby, a shopping mall. Seafarers' centres run by charities such as the Mission to Seafarers, Stella Maris and the Sailors' Society are good places to sit down and call home, and many offer free WiFi. You share every one of those networks with people you have never met.

On an open network, anyone on the same WiFi can see more of your traffic than you would like. Setting up a fake hotspot named after the cafe is a cheap trick, and it still works. Banking apps use their own encryption, which helps. Email, crew portal and payment logins in a browser are what you most need to protect. Our guide to port WiFi security explains the risks and fixes in full.

A VPN encrypts everything between your phone and the VPN server, so the network you are sitting on sees only scrambled traffic. Install it and log in on ship WiFi before arrival. Turn it on before you open anything that involves money or a password. These are the two I use and recommend to crew:

Device limits and prices change, so check the current plan page before paying. NordVPN is the one I run on my own phone and laptop. Surfshark makes more sense if you want one plan for every device you own with no limit to worry about. Cruise crew spend more time on shared networks than most, and our VPN guide for cruise ship crew has the longer comparison.

A VPN cannot protect you if you type your password into a fake login page, and it will not speed up a slow connection. Some crew portals and banking apps also block VPN traffic. If a login fails with the VPN on, use mobile data on your eSIM for that one task, then turn the VPN back on.

The 2FA trap

Confirm before you sail that you can log into your bank without receiving an SMS to your home number, because that is the failure that strands people. Six months on a contract with the home SIM sitting in a drawer means the code goes to a phone that is switched off in another country.

Move critical accounts to an authenticator app while you still have your home number working. Bank, email, the account that holds your certificates, the app you use to send money home. Save the backup codes somewhere offline. The full method, including what to do when the bank refuses to accept anything but SMS, is in our guide on keeping your number and 2FA codes working through a long contract.

Test it before you leave. Log out and log back in. An untested backup is a guess.

Three ways to keep the codes reaching you

1. Authenticator app. Codes are generated on the phone itself and need no signal at all. Use this wherever the service supports it. Back up the authenticator or save its recovery codes, because otherwise a lost phone takes every code with it.
2. Passkeys. More banks and email providers now let you sign in with a passkey stored on your phone and unlocked with your face or fingerprint. No code is sent anywhere, so nothing depends on your home number.
3. WiFi calling on the home SIM. In a dual-SIM phone, keep the home SIM in the second slot with WiFi calling switched on. Many carriers will then deliver SMS codes over any WiFi connection, including ship WiFi, with no roaming charge. Whether this works depends entirely on your carrier and phone, so test it at home before you join the ship.

Whichever method you use, carry the phone that receives the codes when you go ashore. A code sent to a phone in your cabin locker is no help at an ATM in town.

Roaming and data limits: item 10 in detail

Accidental roaming is how a pleasant afternoon becomes a 200 dollar bill. It happens in three ways. The phone switches data back to the home SIM after a restart. The eSIM runs out of data and the phone falls back to the home line without asking. Or the ship is close enough to a coast that the home SIM joins a foreign network while you think you are still on ship WiFi.

The two-minute check before going ashore:

1. Turn data roaming off on the home line. Leave voice and SMS on so you can still receive codes and calls.
2. Set the travel line as the default for mobile data, and check the setting again after any restart.
3. Set a data warning in the phone's data usage settings a little below your eSIM allowance, so the phone warns you before the package runs out.
4. Check your home carrier's roaming caps. EU carriers apply a default spending limit on data roaming outside the EU, often around 50 euros before tax, unless you have opted out. Many carriers elsewhere offer something similar. Check your own contract, because the cap and its rules differ between carriers and countries.

Watch out for maritime networks too. Some ships and offshore installations run a mobile network that your phone can join at sea. It is billed at satellite roaming rates, far above land roaming. Keep data roaming off on the home line at sea as well as ashore.

Timing and the last boat

Set two alarms for the return, one at your intended departure from town and one thirty minutes before the last boat or gangway deadline. One alarm gets snoozed by someone in a good restaurant.

Add a note in the alarm label with the actual deadline time, because a labelled alarm reading "LAST BOAT 23:00, leave now" cuts through a conversation better than a generic buzz. Write the agent's number and the duty officer's number down on paper as well. Paper works at zero percent battery.

Check the return arrangements before you go. Launch service, shuttle bus and gate opening hours all change between calls, and a gate that was open until midnight last rotation may close at 20:00 now. If you are joining or leaving the ship instead of taking normal shore leave, see airport to ship transfer options for crew.

Work backwards from the deadline

The second alarm only helps if thirty minutes is enough to get back. In a port where the terminal is ten to thirty kilometres from town, it often is not. Ask whoever came back last time how long the ride took in the evening, then add time for a taxi to arrive and for gate security. For a terminal far out of town, I set the first alarm at the deadline, minus the full journey time, minus another thirty minutes, and I treat that one as the real alarm.

Keep the ship's sailing time in mind as well as the gangway time. If cargo finishes early, the master can bring sailing forward and the agent will try to reach crew ashore. That is one more reason to keep your phone charged and make sure the duty officer has your number.

If you are going to be late

Call the agent first, then the ship. The agent knows the gate, the launch operators and the taxi firms that can get through, and can often arrange something you could not arrange yourself. The duty officer needs to know where you are and roughly when you will be back. Call early. A call an hour before the deadline gives everyone options. A call ten minutes after it gives them a problem.

Someone at home knows your window

Item 12 takes one minute and saves a lot of worry at both ends. Before going ashore, send home a short message with the port, the hours you expect to be ashore in their time zone, and when you will be back on ship WiFi. Families who are used to hearing from you every evening worry when the message does not come. A simple "ashore in Busan until 22:00 local, back online after that" prevents that.

Time zones are where this goes wrong. When the ship has crossed six time zones in a fortnight, it is easy to say "back by ten" and mean the wrong ten. Give the time in their zone, or add a world clock widget so you can check both zones at a glance.

You could also share your live location with one person at home while you are ashore. Both major phone platforms and most messaging apps can share it for a set number of hours, and it switches off by itself afterwards. It uses a little battery and data, so turn it off if you are running low.

What this checklist will not fix

Being honest about the limits matters more than a longer list.

It does not help if the port has no shore leave. Plenty of terminals still restrict access, and some countries require a visa you do not have. No amount of preparation changes an ISPS gate decision or an immigration officer's mood.

It does not solve bad coverage inside a terminal. Steel, containers and distance from town mean patchy signal is normal. Offline preparation is a workaround for this, and it does not make the signal appear.

It does not protect against theft. A phone full of preparation is still a phone in a pocket. Carry the backup card separately, keep the paper number, and accept that a stolen phone ends the digital half of your day regardless.

It does not replace the ship's official channels. Your agent and duty officer are the real safety net. The checklist exists so you can reach them when you need them.

It adds friction. Fifteen minutes of preparation for four hours ashore feels disproportionate the first time. It stops feeling that way the first time it saves you.

Who does not need most of this

If you are sailing on a route with reliable crew internet and doing short walks near a passenger terminal in a country whose language you speak, most of this is overkill. Charge your phone, take a card, note the return time, go.

The checklist earns its keep in three situations. First, unfamiliar ports where you have never been ashore. Second, ports far from town where getting back means a specific bus or launch. Third, any call in a country where you do not read the alphabet. Anything in those categories, run the full list.

Cruise crew deal with different problems, mostly bandwidth and account access more than transport. Our VPN guide for cruise ship crew covers the connectivity side.

The five-minute version

Not everyone gets fifteen minutes. If the call is short and you are already halfway down the alleyway, do these five in order and accept the risk on the rest.

1. Charge to full and grab the power bank. Everything else depends on this.
2. Turn on the travel data line and send one test message. Confirms it works while you can still fix it.
3. Screenshot the route back and the terminal name. Survives a dead app and a dead network.
4. Save the agent's number to contacts and write it on paper. Two failure modes covered.
5. Set the return alarm with the deadline in the label. The one that gets you back onboard.

That is the compressed version, and it covers roughly eighty percent of what actually goes wrong.

FAQ

Do I need an eSIM for every port call?

No, and buying one for a six hour call is usually a waste. For calls where you will be ashore several hours in a country you visit regularly, a regional eSIM package pays for itself against roaming charges. For a quick walk to a chandler near the gate, ship WiFi plus offline maps is enough. The judgement is whether you need working data away from the terminal.

What happens if my phone dies while I am ashore?

This is why the paper backup exists. Write the agent's number, the duty officer's number and the terminal name on a piece of paper in your wallet before you leave. Any shop, hotel or taxi office can let you make one call. Without the paper you are relying on strangers with translation apps, which works but costs you an hour you may not have.

Should I use ship WiFi or mobile data in port?

Use ship WiFi for anything large before you go ashore, then mobile data once you leave. Ship connections are shared across the whole crew and slow down badly in the evening, so download your maps and updates earlier in the day. If crew WiFi is the bottleneck rather than the plan, the fixes in our guide on making slow crew WiFi usable apply directly.

How much local cash should I carry ashore?

The equivalent of thirty to fifty US dollars in local currency covers a taxi back to the terminal and a meal in most ports. More than that and you are carrying risk for no reason. Get it from a bank ATM in town rather than the terminal, and keep the taxi money separate from the spending money so you cannot accidentally spend the ride home.

Is it safe to photograph my passport and keep it on my phone?

It is a reasonable trade-off for most crew. The risk is a stolen phone, and you reduce that with a screen lock and a separate folder rather than the open camera roll. The benefit is real: replacing a lost passport abroad is significantly faster when you can show the consulate a clear photo of the original. Use a locked notes app or an encrypted folder if your phone offers one.

Does any of this work in ports with no signal at all?

Yes, and that is the point of the offline half of the list. Downloaded maps, screenshots, saved contacts, a translation language pack and photographed documents all function with the phone in airplane mode. The parts that need a network are data, banking and messaging, so plan the return trip assuming they might not work.

What size power bank should I take ashore?

A 10,000 mAh bank is the right size for a day ashore. It gives most phones two full charges, fits in a jacket pocket and is well under the 100 Wh airline cabin limit, so you can take the same bank on the flight home at sign off. A bigger bank adds weight you will not need on a four hour shore leave.

Is a local SIM cheaper than an eSIM in port?

Per gigabyte, a local SIM is often cheaper, especially in countries where mobile data costs little. What you pay instead is time. You have to find a kiosk and register with your passport, which takes roughly twenty minutes of a short call. If your ship comes back to the same country every rotation, a local SIM you keep topped up can be the better deal. If your route reaches a new country every few days, a regional eSIM installed in the cabin usually works out better.

Do I need a VPN on cafe or seafarers' centre WiFi?

For anything involving money or logins, yes. You share open WiFi in cafes, hotels and port areas with strangers. A VPN encrypts the connection between your phone and the VPN server, so nobody on the same network can read your traffic. It matters less if you are only reading news or checking a map. Turn the VPN on before you open your banking app and leave it on.

What should I do if I miss the last boat back to the ship?

Call the agent first, then the ship. The agent can usually arrange a launch, a taxi through the gate or a meeting point, and the duty officer needs to know you are safe and how late you will be. Do not try to talk your way through a closed terminal gate on your own. The earlier you call, the more options the agent still has.

Which apps should I install before shore leave?

Install an offline map app with the port region downloaded and a translation app with the local language pack. Add an authenticator app for your bank and email, your banking app already logged in, the messaging app your family uses and a VPN for public WiFi. Install and test them all on ship WiFi before arrival, because app stores and first logins are slow on a weak port signal.

Can I show a photo of my seaman's book instead of the original at the gate?

Usually no. Gate security and immigration normally expect the original document or the shore pass issued for that call, and the rules depend on the port and the country. The photo is a backup in case you lose the document, or for a hotel desk or a clinic. Take whatever originals the agent or the master tells you to carry, and keep the photos as insurance.

Verdict

Preparation ashore is unglamorous and it is the difference between a good afternoon and an expensive scramble. The twelve points above cost you fifteen minutes in the cabin and they cover the failures that actually happen: a dead battery, an unactivated data plan, a terminal that is not where the map thinks it is, and a bank that wants an SMS code sent to a phone in another hemisphere. Run the full list for unfamiliar ports, run the five-minute version when time is short, and keep the paper backup in your wallet regardless of how good your shore leave tech checklist gets.

Related reading

• Best offline maps for shore leave: tested picks
• Best eSIM for seafarers: what actually works between port calls
• Best power bank for seafarers, tested at sea
• Port WiFi security: how not to get hacked

About the author

I work as a marine engineer and have spent most of the last decade on bulk carriers and product tankers, which means a lot of terminals a long way from anywhere useful. This checklist grew out of my own mistakes and the ones I watched colleagues make: the dead phone in a Rotterdam winter, the eSIM that would not activate in a car park, the bank that locked a card the first time it saw a foreign transaction. Everything here is tested by the only method that counts, which is needing it and not having it. Nothing in this article is sponsored. The Airalo, NordVPN and Surfshark links above are affiliate links, and no other product is linked for commission.

Latest updates

• Airalo Regional vs Global eSIM: Which Saves Crew?: our newest guide on this topic.
• Port WiFi Security: How Not to Get Hacked (2026): our newest guide on this topic.