Working while travelling: connectivity that does not let you down

Working while travelling puts a different kind of load on your connection. A holiday needs maps and messaging. Work needs a video call that does not drop in the middle of a sentence, on a Tuesday, from a country where you do not speak the language.

That difference changes what you should buy and how you should set it up.

What working travellers actually need

Enough data, with room to spare. Video calls, large file transfers and screen sharing add up fast. Tethering a laptop adds more, because a laptop does not economise the way a phone does. Estimate your usage for a normal week at home, then buy comfortably more than that.

Tethering that is definitely allowed. Both Saily and Nomad include hotspot on every plan with no surcharge and no throttling, which is what you want when the laptop is the point. Not every provider in the category does, so if you buy elsewhere this is the first thing to check.

A backup. This is the one that separates working travellers from everyone else. If your connection failing costs you a client meeting, one provider is not a plan. Two eSIM profiles, or an eSIM plus a local SIM, turns an outage into an annoyance.

Coverage where you will actually be. City coverage is broadly fine across providers. If you are heading somewhere rural to work, that is where a local SIM's better coverage starts to matter more than convenience.

Building a setup that survives a bad day

The arrangement that holds up:

1. A regional eSIM as your primary data line. Covers the countries you are moving through without buying a new SIM in each one.
2. A second eSIM profile from a different provider, installed but unpurchased. See the setup guide for installing one without activating it. Costs nothing until you need it. If the first fails on a work morning, you buy a plan on the second in about two minutes.
3. Your home SIM active for calls and SMS, data off. Keeps verification codes arriving and prevents a roaming bill.
4. A local SIM once you settle somewhere for more than two or three weeks. Better coverage, lower cost, and a local number for the practical stuff.
5. Known Wi-Fi fallbacks. The café with reliable Wi-Fi near your flat, and a coworking space you have actually walked to. Find these in the first two days, not on the morning you need them.

Choosing between the two

Both Nomad and Saily sell regional data plans that work for this. The honest distinction for a working traveller:

Nomad is worth leading with when data volume is your main constraint, or when your route includes somewhere less-travelled: it covers 200+ countries, with pay-as-you-go rates from around $1.10 per GB and cheaper bundled rates, which is what tethering a laptop for a month consumes.

Saily is worth leading with when you want the setup to be simple and you spend a lot of time on public Wi-Fi. It comes from Nord Security, the company behind NordVPN, and that shows in how the product is put together. It covers 150+ countries, so check your route against its list - it does not cover Alaska, and it has been blocked in Turkey since July 2025.

For a month-long trip the sensible answer is often both: one as primary, one installed as the backup. The cost of the second is zero until you use it.

Budgeting your data honestly

People underestimate this consistently. A rough way to get it right:

• Track your phone's data use for one normal working week at home, including any tethering.
• Multiply by the number of weeks you will be away.
• Add half again, because travel weeks involve more maps, more uploads and more hotspot use than home weeks.

Buying too much costs a little. Running out mid-month costs a working day and the stress of fixing it on a bad connection.

Where a local SIM wins

Once you are somewhere for a month or more, a local SIM is usually the better primary:

• Cheaper for the volumes that remote work consumes.
• Better rural coverage, because you are on the network directly rather than through a reseller agreement.
• A local number, which matters for deliveries, banking, taxis and anything that verifies you by SMS.

Keep the eSIM installed as the backup and for the days you travel out of the country. That combination is what most people settle on after their first long stay.

Common questions

Can I run my whole working life off a travel eSIM?

In cities, generally yes, provided you buy enough data and have a backup. The failure modes are rural coverage and support response times rather than raw speed. For a month or more in one place, a local SIM as primary is more robust and usually cheaper.

Is tethering really allowed?

With Saily and Nomad, yes, on all plans and at no extra cost. Neither restricts or throttles hotspot use, so one plan can serve a laptop, tablet and phone at once, and a capped plan simply depletes faster when shared. Other providers in the category are less consistent about this, so verify before buying elsewhere.

What do I do if my connection fails during a work day?

Have the answer ready before it happens. A second eSIM profile installed, a coworking space you have already located, and offline copies of anything you need to present. Support response times vary from minutes to days across the whole category, and you cannot plan around a number you cannot predict.

How much data does a video call use?

Considerably more than everything else you do combined, and more again if you are sharing your screen. If your work involves daily calls, that single factor should set the size of your plan.

Do I need a VPN as well?

If you work from public Wi-Fi regularly, it is a reasonable precaution, and some travellers pick their eSIM provider partly for that ecosystem. It is a separate decision from which data plan to buy.

Planning work around the trip

If you are choosing a base, the trip ideas pages are a quick way to see how much ground a route covers before you commit to it.

The useful trick is deciding in advance which days are working days and which are not, then building the itinerary to match. Long travel days and heavy call days do not mix, and finding that out on the day is expensive.

ChatYourTrip can lay out the trip so the moving days and the sightseeing days are visible, which makes it obvious where a working day fits and where it does not.

For picking a provider, see Saily vs Nomad. For getting it working, see setup and troubleshooting.