How much data a trip needs

The best guide to how much data you’ll use abroad is how much you use now. Your phone keeps count, and a few minutes in its settings gives you a figure to start from. What changes it most from one trip to the next is how much video you watch away from Wi-Fi.

Find your own number

• On an iPhone, open Settings, then Cellular or Mobile Service. It shows how much mobile data you’ve used in the current period, and which apps used it. Reset Statistics starts the count again, which is useful a week before you go.
• On a Pixel, open Settings, then Network & internet, then SIMs. The total is at the top, and App data usage breaks it down by app and by period. Other Android phones show the same figures in their mobile data settings.
• In WhatsApp, open Settings, then Storage and data, then Network usage, to see what WhatsApp itself has used.

The count is mobile data only. Whatever you did on Wi-Fi at home isn’t in it, so if you’ll have less Wi-Fi on the trip, expect to use more.

Worked examples

Every figure below is either the maker’s own or worked out from one in the open, so you can redo the sums with your own habits.

From your own count. Say your phone shows 6 GB of mobile data over the last 30 days. That’s 6 ÷ 30 = 0.2 GB a day, and for a ten-day trip 0.2 × 10 = 2 GB. Round it up for the days you’ll lean on maps more than you do at home.

Evenings of video. Netflix says that on its Automatic setting for mobile data you can watch about 4 hours per GB. Two hours a night for a week is 2 × 7 = 14 hours, and 14 ÷ 4 = 3.5 GB.

The same week on less. On its Save Data setting, Netflix puts it at about 6 hours per GB, so the same fourteen hours come to 14 ÷ 6 ≈ 2.3 GB. Episodes downloaded on Wi-Fi before you go use none of your plan.

A laptop on your hotspot. It uses data the way it does at home, updates and cloud backups included, and the phone counts all of it. Pause those before you connect, and check that your plan’s details say hotspot is included.

Using less

• On an iPhone, Low Data Mode, in the travel line’s settings, pauses automatic updates and backups and reduces the quality of streaming.
• On a Pixel, Data warning & limit tells you when the data used reaches a figure you set, and can turn mobile data off there.
• In WhatsApp, set Media auto-download to Wi-Fi. WhatsApp itself suggests that on a limited data plan you restrict media to auto-download when connected to Wi-Fi only.
• Download maps before you go. Google Maps lets you save an area to use offline, though Google notes that walking, cycling and public transport directions aren’t available offline.

If you run out

On a fixed-data plan, the data stops when it’s used up, and nothing more is charged. Where your eSIM can take a top-up, “Add data” on its order page and in “My eSIMs” adds data to the same eSIM. Otherwise, buy a new plan.

On a daily plan, each day’s data renews the next day, and until then the plan slows down or stops, as its plan details say. Your order page shows how much your eSIM has used and has left, as our supplier last read it.