If you have ever landed in a new country, opened your phone, and instantly felt that little panic spike, you already know the game: stay connected without getting absolutely roasted by roaming.

The “best” option is rarely universal. It depends on how long you travel, how many borders you cross, whether you need a local phone number, and how much effort you are willing to spend hunting for a SIM shop when you would rather be finding coffee.

So let’s do this properly. Real scenarios, real pricing examples, and the honest tradeoffs. And yes, this is where a travel eSIM like Airhub often wins on simplicity, especially when you are moving fast.

What you are really choosing

A local SIM card is usually a physical SIM (sometimes also sold as an eSIM by the local carrier). You buy it inside the country, pop it in, top up if needed, and you get local pricing.

A travel eSIM is something you install before you go (or on arrival) using a QR code or app flow. No plastic, no shop visit, and you can keep your existing SIM active for calls while using eSIM data in parallel.

The two big questions that decide almost everything:

Do you need a local phone number for calls and SMS?
Do you stay in one country, or hop between several?

If you need a local number for bank SMS, local calls, or WhatsApp registration in a new number (rare), a local SIM can be worth the hassle. If you mainly need data, travel eSIMs are hard to beat.

Real scenario 1: You land in Croatia for 7 to 10 days

This is a great example because Croatia has strong tourist SIM offers.

Local SIM option
A1 Croatia publicly advertises a tourist offer with 10 days of unlimited 5G data for €9.90, and it is available as an eSIM too.
Telemach also markets tourist packages and positions them around “unlimited internet” style bundles for tourists.

So in this specific country, if you are staying put and you like the idea of unlimited data, the local operators can look very attractive on price.

Travel eSIM option (Airhub example)
Airhub has Croatia plans listed with a 30-day option around $50, and a Croatia 15GB plan with calls and texts shown at $24.50 for 30 days.

How to decide in real life

If you are in Croatia for 10 days and your priority is cheap unlimited data, the local tourist pack is tough to argue with. You are talking about roughly ten euros and you are done.

But here is the catch people forget: you still need to buy it, activate it, possibly queue, possibly show ID, and you do all this while jet-lagged and hungry. If you are arriving late, switching airports, or you just want data instantly when you land, a travel eSIM wins on convenience even if the raw price is higher.

The Airhub angle here is simplicity: install before you travel, land connected, no shop run. And if you need a single provider you can reuse across trips, you start valuing that more than saving a few euros once.

Real scenario 2: The US trip that turns into three countries

This is where local SIM starts to feel like a mini project.

Option A: Local SIM in each country
USA: find a store, pick a prepaid plan, get it working.
Canada: repeat.
Mexico: repeat.

It can be cheaper in pure data-per-euro terms, but you pay in time and friction. Also, not every airport makes it easy, and not everyone wants to spend their first hour in a new place doing paperwork.

Option B: One regional or global travel eSIM
Airhub has a United States 10GB / 30 days plan listed with a price-per-GB of $0.95, which implies about $9.50 for 10GB.
Airhub also lists larger multi-country options, like Global 20GB for 30 days at $34 and Global 12GB for 30 days at $28.
For heavier users, Airhub’s bigger Global bundles like 30GB ($39) and 40GB ($45) are also shown.

How this plays out

If you are doing a two-week roadtrip across the US and you are not crossing borders, a local SIM can be great.

But if you are doing “New York, then Toronto, then Mexico City” in the same month, travel eSIM is usually the cleaner move. One install, one provider, and you are not scrambling in every new country.

This is where Airhub’s pricing can actually look surprisingly reasonable for the convenience, because you can pick a package that matches your behavior instead of committing to a local carrier setup three times.

Real scenario 3: The classic Europe hop (3 to 6 countries)

If you are doing a Euro trip, a local SIM can still be fine, but the logic changes.

A local SIM from an EU country often roams across the EU. That means you might buy one SIM in, say, Italy and still have service in France, Spain, Austria, and so on. Sounds perfect.

Until you hit the “fine print” moments:

Fair use limits, throttling, and some bundles not roaming the way you expect
You still need to find the store and activate the SIM
If you arrive in one country and immediately take a train to another, timing gets messy

For this kind of trip, travelers usually want one of two things:

A single regional eSIM that just works across multiple countries
Or an EU local SIM bought once, used across the trip

So why do people still pick travel eSIMs?

Because it is predictable. You can install it at home, you do not have to gamble on store hours, and you can keep your main SIM active for calls and verification messages.

Also, travel eSIM marketplaces are brutally competitive in Europe pricing, so “local SIM is always cheaper” is not automatically true anymore. You can see Europe-region eSIM offers from multiple providers in the $9 to $11 range for 10GB-ish packages, depending on provider and promo.

Airhub’s “shine” moment here is less about being the absolute cheapest every time, and more about being the option you can set up in two minutes and then forget about while you actually travel. That is the part people pay for, happily.

The hidden costs nobody includes

In practice, most travelers care about one thing: “Will it work when I land?”
That is why travel eSIM adoption has exploded. The pain of being offline in the first hour of a trip is real.

When Airhub is the obvious pick

If you relate to any of these, a travel eSIM like Airhub is usually the smoothest answer:

You are visiting multiple countries in one trip (regional or global plan makes life easier).
You want to land connected, especially on late arrivals or tight connections
You travel often and you want a repeatable setup instead of buying new SIMs constantly
You want predictable packages like Global 12GB for $28 or Global 20GB for $34 rather than dealing with local carrier rules every time
You need an easy US option like 10GB for roughly $9.50 and do not want to visit a store

When a local SIM still makes more sense

I will be honest, local SIM still wins sometimes:

You are staying one month or longer in one country and want the best long-term value
You need a true local number for work, deliveries, or local banking
The country has a very strong tourist SIM deal (Croatia is a good example with a €9.90 unlimited 10-day offer)

The quick decision checklist

If you want the simplest answer:
Single country, long stay, need local number: local SIM
Single country, short stay, mainly data: travel eSIM
Multiple countries: travel eSIM almost always
Landing late, moving fast, hate admin: travel eSIM

And if you are the kind of traveler who just wants things to work without turning connectivity into a side quest, Airhub is built for that style of travel, with pricing that can be genuinely competitive once you factor in the time you save.