Get an eSim Before Arriving in Seoul
ISPWonder
2 days ago
I consider myself an avid traveler. Previously, I have been in South Korea twice (pre-covid). In the last time that I went, I did not order a sim beforehand or sometimes did not use a sim all. Mostly relying on Wi-Fi availability in restaurants and shops. As you can imagine, this was not very easy especially when trying to quickly look up something or meeting up with a friend because the connection is not always reliable.
Granted, my South Korean friend has said that the country has recently put in initiatives to add Wi-Fi hotspots into popular city centers and tourist areas. But this is still not accessible everywhere especially if you are traveling by bus or Subway, going to rural areas, or even just further out from the main attractions.
This time I decided to cut the hassle and get an eSim. I did check the purchase price across different websites beforehand and found that creatrip gave the most affordable option with unlimited data. After purchasing this option, I was emailed the QR code which was very easy to set up. It was much cheaper and more convenient than buying a physical sin at the airport. When I was there in the morning, there was so many people waiting and the queue was quite long. So it was certainly nice to be able to skip all of that hassle especially after already waiting for a while at the immigration control.
Just remember to enable eSIM options onto your phone. This might be different based on your phone make and model.
I did have to restart my phone wants to make sure that the network connected properly. After that there were no issues at all with using the data. It was super convenient to have the unlimited data especially because I did not have to worry about how much I was using. I could go on TikTok for hours while waiting for buses or sitting in the subway station. I could also download different apps on the go as I needed them as well. Some of the very helpful apps that I use were Papago which helped me translate different text and conversations when speaking with the locals. I could also easily look up things as I needed them.
I was also able to compare prices of different things back in my home country while browsing for skin care in stores such as Olive Young and Daiso as well as across different other stores. The saved me a lot of time and energy because I didn't have to go around hunting for deals and noting down manually what cost how much in different places.
In my trip, unexpectedly, I ran out of cash and needed to withdraw some urgently. If you are a fellow bargain hunter, you already know that many of the vintage and second hand markets tend to only accept cash. Without fast and on-demand internet connection, I would have struggled to figure out what to do and where to go. It was also my first time using a Korean ATM and I was a bit overwhelmed. Being able to look up things on Google quickly was very helpful particularly because there will other people waiting in line for me to be done.
Overall, I think this made my trip a lot less stressful than it would have been. I will definitely get another eSim via Creatrip next time I am in Seoul.
