Almost everybody buys the wrong amount of data on their first trip. Some people panic and buy 20 GB for a long weekend, then come home having used barely one. Others buy 1 GB for a fortnight and run dry on day four, standing outside a cafe hunting for Wi-Fi.
The good news is that this is easy to work out once you see what things actually cost in megabytes. Here is the short version, then the detail.
The short answer
For a typical one week holiday where you use maps, messaging, a bit of social media and connect to Wi-Fi at your hotel each night, 3 GB is enough. For a fortnight, or if you like video calling home, 5 GB is the safer pick. If you are working remotely or sharing your connection with a laptop, look at 10 GB or more.
Most travellers overestimate. The single biggest reason is that people think in terms of "I use loads of data at home" and forget they are on hotel and cafe Wi-Fi for a large part of every day abroad.
Prices and settings in this guide were checked by hand in August 2026. Providers change plans often, so always confirm on the provider page before you buy.
What each activity actually costs
These are rough figures per hour of active use. They vary with video quality and how chatty the app is, but they are close enough to plan a trip around.
| Activity | Roughly per hour | What that means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| Maps and navigation | About 5 MB | Tiny. Two weeks of daily navigation is under 150 MB. |
| WhatsApp messages | Under 1 MB | Text and photos barely register. |
| WhatsApp voice call | About 30 MB | Half a MB per minute. An hour a day for a week is roughly 200 MB. |
| WhatsApp video call | About 300 MB | Ten times the voice cost. This is what drains plans. |
| Email and web browsing | 10 MB to 25 MB | Depends how image heavy the sites are. |
| Social media scrolling | 100 MB to 150 MB | Instagram and Facebook feeds, autoplay on. |
| TikTok or Reels | 200 MB to 350 MB | Short video is heavier than people expect. |
| Music streaming | 40 MB to 90 MB | Normal quality at the low end, high quality at the top. |
| YouTube at 480p | 250 MB to 350 MB | Perfectly watchable on a phone screen. |
| YouTube or Netflix in HD | 2 GB to 3 GB | One film can cost more than a whole light trip. |
Look at the gap between the top of that table and the bottom. Maps cost almost nothing. Video is the whole story. If you never stream a film on mobile data, your trip will be cheap. If you watch two episodes of something on the plane home, you might use more in an evening than in the previous ten days combined.
Three traveller profiles
Rather than guessing, find yourself in this table. The daily figure assumes you are on Wi-Fi overnight, which almost everybody is.
| Type | What a typical day looks like | Data per day | One week | Two weeks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The light traveller | Maps, messages, the odd photo upload, hotel Wi-Fi at night | About 100 MB to 200 MB | 1 GB | 3 GB |
| The normal traveller | All of the above plus social media, some music, a few short videos | About 300 MB to 500 MB | 3 GB | 5 GB to 10 GB |
| The heavy traveller | Working remotely, video calls, streaming, sharing to a laptop | About 1 GB to 2 GB | 10 GB | 20 GB or unlimited |
- ✓Plans from 1 GB to unlimited
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What the sizes cost
Here are our current entry prices so you can see the real trade off. The jump from 1 GB to 3 GB costs less than a coffee, which is why we almost always tell people to size up rather than down.
| Data | Validity | Price from | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | 7 days | from $1.29 | A weekend with maps and messaging |
| 3 GB | 15 days | from $1.95 | The size most travellers actually need |
| 3 GB | 30 days | from $1.99 | A slow month, light use |
| 5 GB | 30 days | from $3.22 | Social media plus the occasional video call |
| 10 GB | 30 days | from $4.49 | Remote work, hotspot use, longer trips |
| 20 GB | 30 days | from $11.48 | Streaming, tethering a laptop, a full month away |
Notice that going from 3 GB to 5 GB adds about a dollar and change. Running out of data in a foreign city, on the other hand, means either buying a fresh plan at short notice or spending your afternoon looking for Wi-Fi. The maths favours buying slightly more than you think you need.
Check what you actually use before you go
You do not need to guess at all. Your phone has been tracking this the whole time.
On iPhone
Go to Settings, then Cellular. Scroll to the bottom and tap Reset Statistics. Use your phone normally for two or three days without Wi-Fi where you can, then come back and look at the Current Period figure. Divide by the number of days and you have your real daily average.
On Android
Go to Settings, then Network and internet, then Data usage or Mobile data. Most Android phones show you a chart of the last 30 days broken down by app. Look at the daily average and, more usefully, look at which three apps are eating the most.
One warning about this method. Your home usage tends to be higher than your travel usage, because at home you often stay on mobile data out of habit. Treat your home average as an upper limit rather than a prediction.
Simple ways to use less
- Download maps before you fly. Google Maps lets you save an entire city offline. It is the single best habit for a traveller, and it costs you nothing but a few minutes on hotel Wi-Fi.
- Turn off video autoplay. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and X all autoplay video by default. Switching that off in each app cuts social media usage by more than half.
- Set streaming apps to low quality. Netflix, YouTube and Spotify all have a data saver setting. On a phone screen you will barely notice the difference.
- Download your playlists and shows on Wi-Fi. The night before a long train journey, grab everything you want offline.
- Watch iCloud and Google Photos backups. A week of holiday photos backing up over mobile data can quietly eat a gigabyte or two. Set backups to Wi-Fi only before you travel.
- Use voice calls instead of video. A WhatsApp voice call costs about a tenth of a video call. If you are checking in with family daily, that adds up fast.
What if you run out anyway
Nothing dramatic happens. Your data simply stops. There is no overage charge and no surprise bill, which is the main advantage of a prepaid travel eSIM over roaming with your home carrier.
To get back online you buy another plan, which takes a couple of minutes on any Wi-Fi connection. Worth knowing though: buying one 5 GB plan up front is cheaper than buying 1 GB three separate times. Another reason to size up at the start.
When unlimited is worth it
Unlimited plans suit a specific kind of traveller: someone who streams a lot, works from cafes, or tethers a laptop all day. If that is you, unlimited removes the mental arithmetic entirely.
For everyone else it is usually poor value. A 3 GB plan covers a normal week comfortably and costs a fraction of an unlimited one. Be aware too that almost every unlimited travel plan in the industry, ours included, has a daily full speed allowance. After you pass it the connection keeps working but slows down. That is standard across providers, and any company claiming genuinely uncapped full speed data forever is not being straight with you.
Common questions
Does hotspot use more data than browsing on my phone?
Not per megabyte, but in practice yes, considerably. Laptops load full desktop websites, run background updates and sync cloud files, all of which are much heavier than the mobile versions. If you plan to tether, roughly double whatever figure you landed on.
Do WhatsApp and iMessage use my data plan?
Yes, but very little for text. Messaging is one of the cheapest things you can do. It is voice and especially video calls that cost real data.
Does my unused data roll over?
On most travel eSIMs, including ours, data expires at the end of the validity window rather than carrying forward. That is another argument for matching the plan to the trip instead of buying a huge allowance you will not finish.
Is it cheaper to buy one big plan or several small ones?
One larger plan, almost every time. Price per gigabyte falls as the size goes up, so 10 GB in a single plan costs much less than ten separate 1 GB plans.
The honest summary
If you remember one thing, make it this: 3 GB covers most one week trips, and video is the only thing that will blow your budget. Download your maps, turn off autoplay, keep photo backups on Wi-Fi, and you will very likely come home with data to spare.
And if you are still unsure, pick the next size up. The difference is a dollar or two. Being stuck without a map in an unfamiliar city costs a lot more than that.
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