Asia eSIM

Good to know in Asia

• Messaging

  One app won't reach everyone

  Asia doesn't share a single messenger. LINE is used by most people in Japan and Taiwan, almost everyone in South Korea is on KakaoTalk, and in mainland China it's Weixin, the Tencent app known abroad as WeChat. Install whichever ones match the countries where you'll be chatting with hosts or guides.

• Internet access

  Mainland China is different

  Once you're in mainland China, services such as Google, Facebook, YouTube and X are blocked, and UK travel advice adds that access can be limited further around key political dates. Decide which apps you'll lean on for that part of the trip before you arrive, and save hotel details where you can read them offline.

• Outdoors

  High ranges, no signal

  In Central Asia's mountains the signal disappears quickly: UK travel advice for Kyrgyzstan warns that in remote areas mobile and even satellite phone coverage can be extremely limited, and the advice for Tajikistan says the same of mobile coverage. Leave your route and return date with someone before heading up.

• Your phone

  Phones get registered too

  A few countries here track handsets as well as SIMs. Indonesia, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan register phones by IMEI, and an unregistered phone running a local SIM can be cut off from the network. Indonesia and Azerbaijan exempt visitors whose phones are roaming on a foreign SIM, so check the rules before you switch to a local one.