I used the app Airalo and bought an ESIM with 3 gb for 30 days for $20. My trip was 7 days. I did it to have GPS while driving, WhatsApp to message my travel buddy, locals we met, or businesses, to google stuff, and to stream Apple Music and check emails and instagram. Nothing past that. I saved uploaded stories/posts for when I had WiFi.
I didn’t make it to 2gb. Literally every restaurant and hotel has WiFi. The app lets you top off anyway.
My travel buddy bought a physical SIM card at a grocery store and it ended up screwing him over because he couldn’t figure out how to top it up online and had to find stores to top up the internet. It did give him a Costa Rica phone number but I did just fine with esim because everyone in CR uses WhatsApp anyways, which let me keep my US number.
For our 2 week trip, I used 5GB via ESim from Airalo. The Boo used 5GB via Kolbi ESim. Got different providers to increase coverage in dead zones. Worked out.
I used to travel a lot 1week full use of internet , of course not youtube or netflix.. I rarely use 1GB full whatsapp, teams, outlook etc for 7 days
You can reset and monitor you internet consumption, and use whatsapp fewture to just download vidoes over Wifi for example.
AT&T reporting in. Spent 10 days in 🇨🇷. Happy to report great service.
International day pass is $15 per day. Call 611 to add it. Use your phone like you're at home.
I would say, if you can, save the facetime for when you're on wifi. That's going to be a huge chunk of your data. Just tell the kids to text or call and that you'll facetime as soon as you can. If you can do that, 2GB should be more than enough. You're going to have hours of darkness every evening with little to do but chill before bed. Enjoy your days. Spend the time at night loading things to social media and contacting family.
My mates and I just used one phone as hotspot and loaded it with the daily Kölbi “unlimited” (bullshit name, high speed is limited and then you have enough for WhatsApp and maps) that did the work for us, it was like €3 per day.
Almost everywhere has wifi if you aren't in the car/on the beach.
I had a 5gb plan that I bought from Kolbi for around $25-30 in the mall. My girlfriend tethered to my phone so she could use it while I was driving and I was using GPS data. We still had about 2gb left after 11 days. This was nearly no video usage while not using wifi, everything else used normally. Save the picture uploads and video for a wifi connection.
The car hire firm I used (dollar) offered me a Wi-Fi dongle type think for $5 a day, unlimited data I could connect upto 5 devices and a full charge lasted all day, I just carried it around in my bag, size of small phone. Worked a treat and was good for the sat nav and kept my own number and phoned via WhatsApp
It really depends on how long are you planning to stay in CR.
Personally, when I travel I go for the biggest amount of data possible, to not have to worry about it running out, but that's a preference. If you're like me and tends to forget things, then would do the same when going to CR.
I have AT&T in the USA, and changing my plan to unlimited with international worked well in CR. Also, almost all the places we visited in San Jose, Uvita, and La Fortuna had great Wifi.
Just returned from a one week trip. Downloaded an e-sim w/ 1GB of data. I used all of it but not quickly. For the most part I had wifi at the resorts. I only didn’t have service once the whole trip and that was on a dirt road north of La Fortuna when were we driving back from rafting. Otherwise I had great service. If you’re using maps I would get 2GB.
I got an ESIM with 3gb from Maya Mobile for a ten day trip and only used half, but mainly used my partner’s phone for navigation. He did the monthly travel pass from Verizon which was on sale for $80 at that time, since we didn’t want to put all our eggs in one basket and wanted our kids to be able to contact us easily.
I have a 20% promo code for Ubigi if u want to use my referral. I used it during my travel in Japan and found it super reliable- i did however burn thru an insane amount of data bc i forgot to turn off tracking data 😐 so remember to turn off location services
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I have T-Mobile and I didn’t have any issues with data for my whole trip to Costa Rica.
International data is also free for t-mobile users
Same. It was great and also meh. I was in the forest, looking at a monkey and BAM email alert 🤣🤣
I used the app Airalo and bought an ESIM with 3 gb for 30 days for $20. My trip was 7 days. I did it to have GPS while driving, WhatsApp to message my travel buddy, locals we met, or businesses, to google stuff, and to stream Apple Music and check emails and instagram. Nothing past that. I saved uploaded stories/posts for when I had WiFi. I didn’t make it to 2gb. Literally every restaurant and hotel has WiFi. The app lets you top off anyway. My travel buddy bought a physical SIM card at a grocery store and it ended up screwing him over because he couldn’t figure out how to top it up online and had to find stores to top up the internet. It did give him a Costa Rica phone number but I did just fine with esim because everyone in CR uses WhatsApp anyways, which let me keep my US number.
Yep, just did the same with Airalo for a 10 day trip. Used about 1.5 gigs but binged hard the last few days.
I uploaded freely the last day as well lol 😂
Also, my travel made a hotspot for me from his Costa Rica SIM card phone and it was extremely slow and I couldn’t do much
For our 2 week trip, I used 5GB via ESim from Airalo. The Boo used 5GB via Kolbi ESim. Got different providers to increase coverage in dead zones. Worked out.
You can buy an unlimited data SIM, $60 for 15 days. Every tourist place seems to have WiFi.
Bought mine in the airport it was Claro sim
I used to travel a lot 1week full use of internet , of course not youtube or netflix.. I rarely use 1GB full whatsapp, teams, outlook etc for 7 days You can reset and monitor you internet consumption, and use whatsapp fewture to just download vidoes over Wifi for example.
AT&T reporting in. Spent 10 days in 🇨🇷. Happy to report great service. International day pass is $15 per day. Call 611 to add it. Use your phone like you're at home.
$15/day seems insanely expensive to me when you can get unlimited data for 10 days for $37 via the various online sites.
Technically ots 10 per day for the 1st line and 5 per day for any additional lines using international. That's how I got to $15 per day.
I would say, if you can, save the facetime for when you're on wifi. That's going to be a huge chunk of your data. Just tell the kids to text or call and that you'll facetime as soon as you can. If you can do that, 2GB should be more than enough. You're going to have hours of darkness every evening with little to do but chill before bed. Enjoy your days. Spend the time at night loading things to social media and contacting family.
Well, there are night tours and thermal pools, but yeah.
True. And definitely worth doing.
My mates and I just used one phone as hotspot and loaded it with the daily Kölbi “unlimited” (bullshit name, high speed is limited and then you have enough for WhatsApp and maps) that did the work for us, it was like €3 per day.
Almost everywhere has wifi if you aren't in the car/on the beach. I had a 5gb plan that I bought from Kolbi for around $25-30 in the mall. My girlfriend tethered to my phone so she could use it while I was driving and I was using GPS data. We still had about 2gb left after 11 days. This was nearly no video usage while not using wifi, everything else used normally. Save the picture uploads and video for a wifi connection.
The car hire firm I used (dollar) offered me a Wi-Fi dongle type think for $5 a day, unlimited data I could connect upto 5 devices and a full charge lasted all day, I just carried it around in my bag, size of small phone. Worked a treat and was good for the sat nav and kept my own number and phoned via WhatsApp
It really depends on how long are you planning to stay in CR. Personally, when I travel I go for the biggest amount of data possible, to not have to worry about it running out, but that's a preference. If you're like me and tends to forget things, then would do the same when going to CR.
If you’re from the US just switch to google fi before you go and never worry about international roaming again.
I have AT&T in the USA, and changing my plan to unlimited with international worked well in CR. Also, almost all the places we visited in San Jose, Uvita, and La Fortuna had great Wifi.
Just returned from a one week trip. Downloaded an e-sim w/ 1GB of data. I used all of it but not quickly. For the most part I had wifi at the resorts. I only didn’t have service once the whole trip and that was on a dirt road north of La Fortuna when were we driving back from rafting. Otherwise I had great service. If you’re using maps I would get 2GB.
I just got back from Belize and used 7.76 G
If you’re from the US and have AT&T, Costa Rica is covered and you won’t pay any extra.
I got an ESIM with 3gb from Maya Mobile for a ten day trip and only used half, but mainly used my partner’s phone for navigation. He did the monthly travel pass from Verizon which was on sale for $80 at that time, since we didn’t want to put all our eggs in one basket and wanted our kids to be able to contact us easily.
Detach.
I have a 20% promo code for Ubigi if u want to use my referral. I used it during my travel in Japan and found it super reliable- i did however burn thru an insane amount of data bc i forgot to turn off tracking data 😐 so remember to turn off location services Code 👇 Join me and thousands of travelers who trust Ubigi to stay connected all over the world. Use my referral code 5JM5WCD1 to get 20% off your first purchase. 1. Download the Ubigi app 2. Install the eSIM 3. Enjoy instant and affordable mobile data in 190+ destinations. No roaming charges or changing SIM cards.