Carry a foreign eSIM

The most consistently useful piece of logistics in the bundle, and Harry mentions it in almost every country. Data on arrival, bought before you land, on your own phone.

The interesting part isn’t the convenience. It’s that a foreign eSIM roams on a foreign network and is therefore outside the local internet — which turns a travel accessory into the thing that decides what you can do in three quite different situations.

Obs: Harry’s eSIM provider is a paying sponsor of most of these videos and is named in each description. The advice is his and predates none of that, but the brand is advertising and no provider is recommended on this page.

How Harry applies it

It defeats censorship without a VPN. In China, YouTube, Instagram and the Western internet are blocked; locals run VPNs, and Harry’s foreign eSIM simply worked. The same is true in Russia, where blocks had recently tightened and a foreign roaming connection bypassed them entirely.

It substitutes for a guide. In Antananarivo he spent an entire day with no interpreter, and the day ran on a translate app — which is a data connection with extra steps.

It is the thing that fails. Syria is where the advice breaks and Harry says so: sanctions mean no eSIM works at all, and a foreigner can’t buy a local SIM either. He crossed the border and navigated Damascus with no data of any kind, which is the strongest argument on this page for how much he normally relies on it.

It is what everyone else forgets. In Rio during Carnival he keeps meeting people who can’t book an Uber or find their hotel because they have no connection, in a city where the party moves by message.

Demonstrated in

• I Rented a Chinese Girlfriend in Shanghai 🇨🇳 — the clearest technical case: a Chinese local uses a VPN for what Harry’s foreign eSIM reaches without one.
• Solo Entering the New Syria (After the Dictator Fell) — the exception that proves it. No eSIM functions in Syria and no local SIM is available to foreigners.
• The Country Everyone Knows But Nobody Visits 🇲🇬 — a full day in Antananarivo conducted through a translate app.
• Things Got Out of Hand at Rio Carnival 🇧🇷 — where the failure mode is other people’s: no data, no Uber, no idea where the next bloco is.
• Attacked and Arrested in Cameroon’s Deadly Protests 🇨🇲 — the entry that stops this reading like a convenience. Separated from Kieran in a hostile crowd in Douala, Harry had data throughout: he tracked Kieran’s location to the police station, spoke to him while he was inside, and reached the governor of Douala to get him released from an espionage charge.

Related

• Learn the local language
• Travel with a local guide