Can one eSIM cover a whole European trip?

Yes. Europe is the only soda line that spans borders: a single eSIM across 34 countries, including the UK, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Turkey and Ukraine, with nothing to swap or reinstall as you cross. You do have to declare your travel dates before payment, so we can arrange the line and show you the right price.

Is one card enough for Japan, Korea and Thailand?

No. Those three are three cards. Every multi-country itinerary outside Europe is issued per country. Before you reach the next stop, tap the switch in the app's eSIM page. The new card is prepared, you install it, and only once it works is the old one retired. There is no switching fee, and the wallet and balance stay the same throughout.

What happens if I forget to switch before crossing a border?

The old card will not pick up a network in the next country, so you land with no mobile data. Do the switch while you still have data or Wi-Fi, on your last night or at the airport. The app prompts you based on the itinerary you declared.

Why does one card work in Europe but not in Asia?

Roaming agreement density. European carriers are interconnected tightly enough that a single profile picks up the next country's partner network as you cross. Asian countries have no equivalent framework, so forcing one card to cover them means funnelling all traffic through a third-country hub, usually Hong Kong or Singapore. That costs you latency, and the wholesale price of those cards runs above the regional plans already on the market. We did the maths and decided not to sell one.

How long does a switch take?

It depends on how fast the upstream issues the card, and we do not promise a fixed time, so don't leave it until you have cleared immigration. The order in the app is prepare the new card, install it, then retire the old one once it works, so you are never left with two cards that both do nothing.

With three cards, does my balance get split three ways?

No. Three cards, one wallet. Usage in all three countries goes onto the same tab, billed by what you actually use, and the balance doesn't expire, so anything left carries to the next trip.

Multi-country trips: one eSIM in Europe, a card per country in Asia

Several countries in one trip, so how many eSIMs do you need? It depends on which border you’re crossing.

Europe is the only soda line that spans borders: one eSIM across 34 countries, Lisbon to Kyiv, with nothing to swap. Every multi-country trip outside Europe is issued per country instead, one card for Japan, one for Korea, one for Thailand, switched free before you reach the next stop.

This is why the two halves work differently, and what a switch actually asks you to do.

Europe: one eSIM, 34 countries

The European line covers 34 countries, including the UK, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Turkey and Ukraine. Fly into Lisbon, take the train through Barcelona, out of Rome, and the profile on your phone is the same one the whole way. Nothing to reinstall, nothing to swap.

One thing has to happen first: you declare your travel dates before paying. European wholesale costs run well above the Asian lines, and we need to know which days you’re there to arrange the line and quote you a price we can hold. That step sits in checkout and there’s no way around it.

There’s one exception worth knowing. A trip to Switzerland alone gets the Swiss country eSIM, which is cheaper than the regional line, and the tiers are on the Switzerland destination page. Two or more European countries, or any European country other than Switzerland, and you’re on the regional line.

Asia: a card per country, switched for free

Japan, Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Philippines, mainland China and Macau are separate single-country lines. Three countries in a trip means three cards.

That sounds like a step backwards. It’s the option we picked after running the numbers.

Why Europe can do it and Asia can’t

The difference is roaming agreement density.

European carriers are interconnected tightly enough that a single agreement often reaches dozens of countries. The one profile on your phone crosses a border and picks up the next partner network on its own. At most you notice the carrier name change.

Asia has nothing like that. Japan, Korea and Thailand share no regional interconnect framework, so making one card cover all three means funnelling every packet through a third-country hub, usually Hong Kong or Singapore. Two real costs come with that:

The detour. You’re standing in Tokyo and your traffic goes out to Hong Kong and back before it reaches anything. That’s latency you feel at peak hours. Where each line actually exits onto the public internet is published in our exit-location database, so you can check it yourself rather than take our word for it.
The price. We compared quotes. Wholesale on a Japan-Korea multi-country card runs higher than the regional plans already being sold. Selling one would mean passing that gap to you.

So we don’t. You get Japan’s line in Japan and Korea’s line in Korea, each exiting locally, and the cost is that you switch cards at the border. There’s more on how routing changes what you feel in native versus roaming lines.

What a switch actually involves

Not nothing, and not the ordeal you might be picturing. Three steps in the app’s eSIM page:

Tap “switch to a {country} eSIM” and pick which card you’re replacing and where you’re going.
The system prepares the new card and you install it on this phone.
The old card is retired only once the new one is confirmed working.

Step three is deliberate. Your working card is never pulled before the replacement is up, so there’s no window where neither one does anything. No switching fee, however many times you do it in a trip.

The one thing to watch: preparing the new card needs a connection. We don’t promise how fast the upstream issues it, so don’t leave it until you’re through immigration with no signal. Do it on your last night, or at the airport while there’s Wi-Fi, and you land with data already working.

Three approaches, side by side

Approach	Upside	Cost
One native card per country, bought outright	Lowest price per country, local line	Pick a plan three times, guess the GB three times, three sets of scraps
A regional Asia card from another provider	Nothing to do at the border	Traffic detours through a third country, higher latency, usually a higher unit price
soda	Europe runs on one eSIM across 34 countries. Asia is per-country but switches are free, on one wallet throughout, billed by actual usage	You do one switch per border in Asia

Scenario one: Lisbon to Barcelona to Rome

Ten days, three countries. Declare the dates at checkout and you get the regional card. After that there’s nothing to manage. The train crosses into Spain and you don’t touch your phone, maps work in Barcelona, and the photos you send from Rome go out on the same card. Ten days of usage lands on one tab, and at settlement soda applies the lowest total across all plan combinations.

One honest note about this line. If you’re going to a single European country and using a lot of data, a local plan there will usually beat us on price. What the regional line buys you is not guessing at GB, not swapping at borders, and a balance that doesn’t expire. The comparison page puts the options next to each other, including the cases where we tell you not to buy soda.

Scenario two: Tokyo to Seoul to Bangkok

Same three countries, different mechanics.

Declare all three legs before you go and the system issues the Japan card first. On your last night in Tokyo, on hotel Wi-Fi, tap the switch and let the Korea card get prepared and installed. Do it again before Seoul to Bangkok.

That’s two extra actions, a minute or two each. In return every country runs on its own line: the Japan card exits in Japan rather than detouring somewhere else, and each country is priced at its own single-country rate instead of being flattened into a regional one. Japan’s tiers are on the Japan destination page if you want to see them before you commit.

All three countries bill onto one tab. One wallet, a balance that doesn’t expire, so anything unused carries to the next trip instead of stranding three separate scraps the way three prepaid bundles would (the arithmetic is in what happens to leftover data).

Working out which one you are

One country, more than a week: buy a local native plan. This trip needs none of the multi-country machinery.
Several European countries: the regional card covers it, and remember to declare dates at checkout.
Several Asian countries: a card per country, with the switches planned into the itinerary. The night before you move beats doing it on arrival, every time.
Plans not fixed yet: the wallet isn’t tied to a country and the balance doesn’t expire, so adding a stop costs you one more switch, not a new purchase.

The short version

One card in Europe, one card per country in Asia. That split isn’t about one region being more advanced. It’s about whether the roaming agreements between neighbours are dense enough to carry a single profile across.

We spell this out because it decides whether you have to do something at a border, and nobody should learn that after their phone goes dark.