eSIM or Physical SIM: What Actually Differs
Profiles, EIDs and the SM-DP+ handshake — plus the handful of situations where a physical SIM is still the better call.
Field notes
Field Notes
Writing from our team and from members, about the parts of working abroad that are genuinely awkward: activation flows that fail, plans that look cheap and are not, visa arithmetic, hostile Wi-Fi, and the slow erosion of a routine somewhere around the third city.
We publish when there is something worth saying rather than to a content calendar. Every piece is edited by someone who has personally had the problem it describes.
All field notes
Choosing a Data Plan You Won't Regret
Volume is the least interesting number on a plan page. Validity, scope, top-up behaviour and tethering rules matter more.
Working Well Across Time Zones
A schedule that survives a nine-hour offset needs written handovers, honest overlap windows and sleep you actually defend.
Visa and Residency Basics for Remote Workers
Tourist stamps, digital-nomad permits, the 90/180 Schengen rule, and why tax residency is a separate question entirely.
Staying Secure on Public Wi-Fi
What a hostile network can and cannot see, why DNS still leaks, and how to think about VPNs without the marketing gloss.
Building a Remote Routine That Holds
Routines break on the third city, not the first. Fixed anchors, portable equipment and a workday that has an actual end.
What we cover
Four things we keep coming back to
Field notes cluster around the same handful of problems, because those are the ones members keep hitting. If you are new to working abroad, reading in this order is more useful than reading by date.
Connectivity that actually activates
The gap between a plan working on paper and a plan working in an airport at 23:00. Device compatibility, carrier locks, the SM-DP+ handshake, what a data-only profile does and does not give you, and why a QR code scanned before departure beats one scanned after landing.
The arithmetic of a data plan
Cheap per gigabyte is not the same as cheap per trip. We look at validity windows, what happens to unused data, when a regional pass beats a stack of local ones, tethering policies that are quietly enforced, and the top-up mechanics that decide whether you can rescue a plan mid-trip.
Paperwork and where you are allowed to be
Visa categories, permitted activity, the difference between being admitted and being allowed to work, tax residency thresholds that creep up on people, and the identity registration some markets require before a SIM profile will activate at all. We describe the shape of the rules and point at primary sources rather than pretending to give legal advice.
Working while everything moves
Time-zone overlap you can actually sustain, securing a laptop on networks you do not control, and the unglamorous routine work — sleep, a fixed desk, a standing call — that decides whether month four is productive or a slow unravelling.
Where a note describes a setting, a menu path or a regulation, we name the version, the market and the date it was checked. Networks, prices and immigration rules move; a note that does not tell you when it was true is not much use.
Something we should cover?
Tell us what went wrong on your last trip
Half of what we publish started as a member describing a problem in a chapter channel. If you have hit something the internet explains badly, we would like to hear about it.