Travel India with a local eSIM and skip the SIM queue at the airport. Real tips for staying connected across India's cities and states.
That sounds obvious until you land in Chennai and realize nothing about it feels like Delhi. Different script on the signs. Different food. Different tempo. India is more like a continent squeezed into a single passport stamp, and that scale catches first-timers off guard every time.
July is monsoon season. That means the Western Ghats turn an almost violent shade of green, Rajasthan gets a brief reprieve from the heat, and the northeast becomes genuinely difficult to reach. Expect delays. Expect reroutes. Expect the kind of travel that builds stories. The infrastructure in major cities like Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad has improved significantly over the past decade, but rural roads in states like Meghalaya or Himachal Pradesh will still test your patience and your phone battery equally.
Most international travelers enter through Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi (Terminal 3 handles most foreign carriers), Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International in Mumbai, or Kempegowda International in Bengaluru. All three have decent transport connections to the city. In Delhi, the Airport Express Line on the Metro runs directly to New Delhi Railway Station in about 20 minutes and costs around 60 rupees. Worth knowing before you get in a taxi queue.
India's mobile networks have expanded fast. Jio, Airtel, and Vi (Vodafone Idea) cover most urban and semi-urban areas with 4G, and 5G has been rolling out across metro cities since 2022. In practice, you will have solid data in cities and along major highways. In the mountains, deep forests, or remote villages, signal drops. That's just geography.
The old process for getting a local SIM as a foreigner was notoriously painful. You needed a passport, a visa, a local address, and sometimes a sponsor. It could take 24 to 48 hours for activation. An eSIM sidesteps most of that friction entirely.
With an eSIM from eSIMMY, you download your plan before you leave home and activate it when you land. No counter, no paperwork, no waiting. If you haven't done this before, the process is straightforward and covered step by step in our guide on how to activate an eSIM. If you're on an iPhone and want to know specifically how eSIM behaves on your device, this breakdown for iPhone users is worth a read before you travel.
One practical note: India eSIM plans typically run on Jio or Airtel infrastructure depending on the provider. Airtel tends to have a slight edge in rural areas and older cities. Jio dominates in newer developments and tier-2 cities. Either way, you're in reasonable shape for a trip that stays on the main tourist routes.
Keep your home SIM in your phone on airplane mode, not removed. You can use dual SIM functionality to keep your regular number for calls while the eSIM handles all your data.
Download offline maps for each city before you leave your hotel in the morning. Data can cut out in metro tunnels, dense markets like Chandni Chowk in Delhi or Crawford Market in Mumbai, and inside older havelis or forts. An offline map won't give you live traffic, but it will stop you from getting lost in a lane where your rickshaw driver has already dropped you off and left.
Indian Railways is one of the best ways to move between cities. A Delhi to Agra run on the Gatimaan Express takes under two hours. Delhi to Jaipur on the Shatabdi is about four and a half. But popular routes fill up weeks in advance. Book through the IRCTC website or app, and register your account before you arrive in India since the verification process takes time. AC 2-Tier (2A) is comfortable and reasonably priced. AC Chair Car works well for shorter day routes.
UPI payments through apps like PhonePe and Google Pay are everywhere in cities. Street food stalls, auto-rickshaw drivers, and small guesthouses in Varanasi or Pushkar often still prefer cash though. ATMs are available in most towns but can run out of notes during festival periods like Eid or Diwali. Carry a mix. Major international cards work at hotels and chain restaurants but not reliably at the smaller places you'll actually want to eat at.
Bengaluru has a Metro with two lines and a third under construction. Mumbai has its suburban rail network, which locals call the local train, and it genuinely goes everywhere, though it's crowded in ways you have to experience to understand. Delhi Metro is the most extensive and easiest for visitors to use, with signs in English throughout.
Auto-rickshaws and cycle rickshaws are essential for short distances in smaller cities. Always agree on a price before you get in, or insist on the meter in cities where meters are standard. App-based auto and cab services like Ola and Rapido work well in most large cities and take the negotiation out of the equation entirely.
The honest truth about India is that things will go sideways at some point. A train will be delayed. A guesthouse will not match its photos. The dish you ordered will arrive as something adjacent to what you expected. The travelers who enjoy it most are the ones who treat that as the trip, not an interruption to it.
Written by Texas Bukkens
Founder of eSIMMY. Spent years watching roaming charges eat into travel budgets - and built the fix. About Texas →
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