Greece eSIM

For most travellers, 5 GB covers ten days comfortably. That is maps, messaging, ferry and hotel bookings, photos to social media and a daily call home.

• Light use, maps and WhatsApp and bookings only: 2 to 3 GB over ten days
• Normal use, adding Instagram, taxis and a daily video call: 5 GB
• Heavy use, streaming in the evening or tethering a laptop: 10 GB or more

Our 5 GB for 30 days plan at $3.33 fits that trip exactly, and the 10 GB for 30 days at $5.99 covers it with room to spare.

Greece has one quirk that helps: almost every hotel, taverna and beach bar has WiFi, and most of it is open. The thing that actually eats data is video, at roughly a gigabyte an hour.

Our eSIM runs on Vodafone Greece and Wind, both on 5G. Two national networks on one profile matters here because island coverage varies between operators.

5G covers Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras and Heraklion. The larger islands including Crete, Rhodes, Corfu, Mykonos and Santorini have strong 4G with 5G in the main towns. On Rhodes, Kos and the other islands close to Turkey, a phone can grab a Turkish mast instead, and our Greek islands guide explains how to stop that.

Smaller Cyclades and Dodecanese islands are covered but on 4G, and coverage can be thin on the far side of an island from its main port.

If your phone plan is from an EU country, no. EU roaming rules give you your home allowance in Greece at no extra cost, so you already have what you need.

If you are coming from the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil or most of Asia, then yes, unless you want to pay a daily roaming fee for the privilege of using maps.

UK travellers should check, because some UK networks kept free EU roaming and others reinstated daily charges.

We would rather tell you honestly than sell you a plan you do not need.

Our Greece plans start at $1.29 at checkout with no code required.

For a typical ten day island trip, the 5 GB for 30 days at $3.33 is the plan most people should buy.

Yes on the islands, all of them, on the same plan with nothing extra to buy. Crete, Rhodes, Corfu, Mykonos, Santorini, Naxos, Paros and the smaller Cyclades are all covered.

Ferries are the honest exception. You keep signal close to shore and lose it in open water between islands, and that is true of every network including a Greek one. On the longer crossings from Piraeus to Crete or Rhodes, expect long stretches with nothing.

Download your tickets, maps and anything you want to read before you board. Ferry WiFi exists on the bigger boats and is rarely worth the money.

Public list prices checked on 30 September 2026.

Our 10 GB for 30 days is $5.99, which is the plan a two week island trip usually wants. We spend almost nothing on advertising compared with the names above, and the price reflects that rather than a weaker network.

Prices move. If one of these is cheaper on the day you read this, buy that one instead.

Airalo is a solid product and the criticisms people raise about it are mostly criticisms of travel eSIMs in general.

• Data only, so no Greek phone number for calls or texts. Ours are the same.
• You need a phone that supports eSIM, which most from 2019 onward do.
• You need an internet connection to install, so do it at home on WiFi.
• A carrier locked phone can refuse to install any eSIM at all.
• Unlimited plans have daily caps, whoever sells them.

The one fair criticism specific to price is that the larger brands charge a premium for the name. That is the gap we exist in.

Yes, and nothing about your WhatsApp changes. It runs over data, so it behaves exactly as it does at home.

Your number stays the same, your chats stay put, you are not logged out, and no second account is created.

WhatsApp voice and video calls work, as do FaceTime, Telegram and Signal. Around 300 MB per hour of video calling.

Our Greece plans are data only, so there is no Greek number for ordinary calls and texts. Keep your usual SIM active if you need one.

On for the eSIM line, off for your home SIM. It feels wrong and it is right.

Your eSIM joins a Greek network as a visitor, so the phone records it as roaming even though nothing extra is charged. Leaving it off is the most common reason an eSIM shows bars but no working data.

Your home SIM is the line that would actually cost you, so turn its roaming off.

On the connectivity side specifically, three things catch people out.

• Ferry crossings lose signal in open water, so download before you board.
• Island interiors and mountain roads on Crete and Rhodes have real dead spots.
• Many beach bars advertise WiFi that barely works in August, so do not rely on it.

None of these are reasons to worry. They are reasons to download your maps and ferry tickets the night before rather than on the dock.

Good where visitors go, with predictable gaps.

• Athens: 5G across the city and in the metro
• Thessaloniki and Patras: 5G in the centres
• Crete: strong in Heraklion, Chania and Rethymno, thinner in the Lasithi plateau and Samaria gorge
• Santorini and Mykonos: good throughout, busy networks in peak August
• Rhodes and Corfu: strong on the coast, weaker inland
• Smaller Cyclades: 4G in the ports and villages, patchy elsewhere
• Ferries: signal near shore, nothing in open water

In August the islands carry many times their normal population and networks slow down accordingly. That affects every operator, local ones included.

Install at home on WiFi before you fly. Two minutes, and nothing starts counting until you arrive.

We email a QR code after purchase. In your phone settings, add an eSIM or mobile plan, scan it, and name the line so you recognise it.

Validity begins when the eSIM first connects to a Greek network, not at purchase or install, so buying ahead costs nothing. You have 180 days to install before the profile lapses.

On arrival, turn the line on, set mobile data to it, and switch data roaming on for that line only.

From outside the EU, worth it. Ours starts at $1.29, runs on Vodafone and Wind 5G, and covers every island on one plan with no island supplement.

From inside the EU, use the plan you already pay for. For a ten day island trip from further afield, the 5 GB for 30 days at $3.33 is the plan to buy, and download everything before you board a ferry.