A data-only eSIM does exactly what the name says: it carries internet, not calls or SMS. Your own SIM stays in the phone and stays switched on, so your bank still texts you a code and your family still reaches you on the number they already have.
What you give up is a local number. In practice that matters for exactly one thing — phoning an albergue to hold a bed. And in practice, most of them answer WhatsApp, which runs perfectly well over data.
The setting people miss
After you enable the eSIM, go back into settings and make sure your home line has mobile data turned off. Otherwise the phone will politely roam on your expensive home plan while your cheap eSIM sits there unused. We have seen the bills.
Walking one of these routes?
Pick it on the map and we'll show only the plans that cover it end to end.
Keep reading
Coverage
Where the Meseta eats your signal
Between Burgos and León the Camino Francés goes very quiet — and so does your phone. Here is roughly where, an...
How to
Install it at home. Switch it on in Spain.
The single most common support email we get is from someone who activated their eSIM three weeks early. Here i...Photos: Wikimedia Commons contributor (CC0) , Simon Burchell (CC BY-SA 4.0) · via Wikimedia Commons