I had an epiphany this summer — I take the modern trappings of civilization for granted. This revelation came to me just outside of the Dubrovnik airport, when I stepped out for a quick smoke and accidentally brought my phone out of range of the free Wi-Fi.
My trip to Montenegro was supposed to be exciting, but not this kind of exciting. See, I’m not used to being off grid. Back stateside, I’ve got a pretty good deal on mobile data. I like having Google Maps as a fallback option in case I get lost. If I need something pronto, it’s just a hey Google away. As long as I was connected, life found a way.
But now I had no connection.
The phantom menace
The worst part was, I’d gone out of my way to avoid nonsense like this. I had called my carrier beforehand about connectivity in Croatia and Montenegro. They assured me I’ll be able to go online, as long as I was cool with roaming fees.
I planned to use mobile data sparingly until I could get a pay as you go SIM in Montenegro. I didn’t want to buy a SIM at the airport — Croatian SIMs offer super limited data in Montenegro (since it’s not in the EU), and I was only going to be in Dubrovnik for a day.
That was the initial plan. No mobile data meant no maps, no translations, and no easy way to check for transportation. I wasn’t too keen on getting lost in an unfamiliar country, so I retreated back to the safety of the airport Wi-Fi.
Enter Saily
I was feverishly weighing my options when Reddit unexpectedly threw me a lifeline: eSIMs. Turns out, all new-ish phones have the necessary SIM bits built in — no need to hunt down some remote kiosk or sign a thirty-page carrier contract to get going. It looked like I could get everything sorted using the airport Wi-Fi.
I found a million eSIM providers offering mobile data in Croatia or Montenegro, but only a few services covered both. In the end, I decided to give Saily a go, mainly because it was made by the NordVPN guys — I really didn’t want to risk some unknown brand in the middle of nowhere.
Plus, I know from past experience that NordVPN takes customer service seriously, so I figured I’d at least be able to get help fast if things went wrong.
Initial impressions
Never having set up an eSIM before, I didn’t know what to expect. The absolute last thing I wanted to do after a 3-hour flight was to gut my phone like a trout and rearrange its insides. Happily, I didn’t need to do anything — you just download the app and choose the plan you want, Saily does the rest.
I picked the Global 3GB plan for $23.49, which supposedly covered all the countries around Montenegro except for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Seemed a little pricey at first, but a quick Google check showed that it wasn’t too different from other multinational eSIMs. I think I paid a premium to be able to carry my data across country borders — when I picked Montenegro in the app for comparison, the price for 3GB instead dropped to a modest $8.99.
Once I activated my plan, it only took a short while before my phone was connected to the internet. I got the full five bars outside the airport, and any pages I tried to open would load up really fast. I didn’t do a full speed test because I didn’t want to waste data, but Google Maps and other apps seemed to be doing just fine.
Connectivity down the line
The Dubrovnik airport was baby stuff — the real challenge for Saily lay ahead, in the mountains and valleys of Montenegro. As our bus slowly inched its way towards the border checkpoint, I waited with bated breath for the connection to drop.
And it did drop — for a grand total of about 10 seconds. Google Maps stuttered a bit, and then the signal was back in full force. I only noticed because I was watching the bars like a hawk.
Since my phone could have two eSIMs active at the same time, I ended up buying the 10GB Montenegro plan for $21.99 fairly early in my vacation. Switching between eSIMs turned out to be super simple, so I decided to make the Montenegro eSIM my primary one and save the Global one for Dubrovnik and Albania.
I had good connectivity throughout the whole trip. Saily had no problems connecting in Herceg Novi, Budva, Kotor, and Pljevlja. It worked fine when we went up into the mountains, showing three to four bars through Podgorica all the way up to the Lipa cave. Emboldened, I even visited Tirana in Albania — and Saily continued to deliver.
The real treasure was the Wi-Fi hotspots we skipped along the way
I know that for some people, the price is everything. That’s OK. I didn’t look, but there probably was a kiosk somewhere in Herceg Novi selling flaky SIMs that advertised hundreds of gigs for $20. Most of these turn out to be duds, but you CAN occasionally find a good deal on mobile data.
Me? I don’t want to play the lottery with my mobile connection every time I go abroad, just to save a couple of bucks. I don’t want to leapfrog from one Wi-Fi hotspot to another, forced to start-stop my trip every hour. For me, Saily is just right — the less I worry about my internet connection, the more I can enjoy the sights.
Mitchell is a tech enthusiast and travel writer who specializes in the latest gadgets that enhance the travel experience. He’s spent years backpacking through Europe and Asia, always on the lookout for the next big thing in travel technology.
