Updated – January 2025
When I first wrote this blog post, e-sims weren’t very popular, but since 2023 they have exploded. Pocket Wi-Fi is almost redundant now. E-sims are now the most popular choice for getting online in Japan.
For the best and most reliable e-sim, checkout UBIGI. Use my code “BU9A1VEU” for 20% off your first e-sim plan. UBIGI consistently has the best coverage across Japan and wider Asia, their plans are also as competitive as the others. UBIGI is always our first choice when traveling.
Have an awesome trip.
Nic x
🇨🇳 Planning a trip to China? Don’t get stuck without the right apps! From the specific VPNs we use to stay connected to the only hotel booking site we trust for foreigners, we have listed everything in our toolkit. 👉
Pocket Wifi sounds like a great idea, especially if you’ve just landed in Japan, turned your phone on and dun dun dun… (queue scary music) no signal. Cue the nervous butterflies as your wonder how to get online quick, to find the subway, find your hotel and call home to say you’ve made. You’re in need of the most reliable, affordable and easiest option to get you connected while travelling Japan.
Let’s check out what options you’ve got so we can find the the best one for you.
Getting Online while traveling Japan
Getting online while traveling is easy these days, but it can still be confusing with so many options. On top of the jet lag and the no English, it can be easy to be overwhelmed deciding which choice is the best for you. Do you:
- Use your plan from back home and come home to a big bill
- Rent a pocket-wifi
- Buy a foreign simcard and hope for the best; or
- Download an e-sim and buy an data only pack?
Exploring a new country can be daunting on its own, without the added stress of working out how to get connected. Having a reliable connection is key to checking transport times, translating languages and buying tickets to the latest attractions. Let’s checkout some of the options available to get online, when traveling Japan.
Using your plan from back home
Depending on what country you’re traveling from, will depend on whether this is an affordable option for you. In New Zealand, we have 3 main service carriers and a few small players. Most of them offer some form of roaming ranging from $8 a day to $50 for a data only add-on. They all offer service in Japan, and use the NTT Docomo network. When we went to Japan, we needed 2 phones to be online and connected. We have our plans with 2degrees and pay $105 a month for unlimited calling, texting and data (to NZ and Aus numbers). We were going to be in Japan for a month and this is what it worked out for us:
2degrees – offer $8 a day roaming, to access your home plan (unlimited calls and texts) but this $8 only included 1GB of data at full speed, because speeds dropped significantly. The $8 day is based on NZ time and in Japan we would be 4 hours behind NZ time. This meant our plan would reset at approximately 8pm local time everyday. With this in mind here is how our calculations worked out:
| 2Degrees Home Plan | Total Cost for 2 phones |
| $105 base monthly charge (for 2 phones, unlimited calls, texts and data [NZ/Aus numbers only]) + $8 a day roaming (to access our base plan and 1GB of fast speed data) x 30 days | $105 base plan + ($8 x 2 = $16) x 30 days = $480 |
| Benefits – Don’t need to do anything, it will automatically work when you turn your phone on | Cons – |
Rent a pocket wi-fi from a local retailer
There are several pocket WiFi retailers in Japan, with a handful retailers in Narita Airport as soon as you land. A pocket wi-fi is like carrying your very own hotspot around. Multiple people and devices can connect and you can buy data plans to go along with them. They contain a SIM card, are battery powered (so need to be charged) and create a personal WIFI network for you to connect to.
Renting a Pocket WIFI – most pocket WIFI’s can be rented online before you land. There are a few companies that offer competitive plans, including Ninja Wifi, JAL and Vision Global WiFi. These 3 can be found at Narita Airport in Tokyo and offer plans from between $5-$8usd per day for unlimited data. When we looked at a pocket WIFI, we were recommended Ninja WIFI so let’s check them out:
| Ninja Pocket Wifi | Total Cost for 2 Phones |
| Ninja Offer 3 devices, we opted for the 5GB a day device at ¥1,100 a day (we only need 1 device for our 2 phones to connect to) x 30 days. | ¥1,100 x 30 days = ¥32,000 Approx: $338nzd |
| Benefits – Reliable connection, unlike using your home plan or public wifi, their service is reliable and uses Japanese networks. – Convenient, compact, easy to carry around – Multiple Connectivity, multiple devices and people can connect to the WIFI. This means you only need to pay once and more than 2 people could connect (our daughter, my parents etc.) – Cost Effective, this is cheaper than using our international roaming home plans and offers unlimited data at an affordable rate. | Cons – Is another device that will require charging everyday – Is another device to carry around, and may require you to carry a spare battery to ensure your WIFI is constantly on for everyone – If more than 1 person is connecting, you will need to stay close as the WIFI will only reach a certain distance. This could prove difficult if people within your group want to do different activities |
E-Sim to get connected when travelling Japan
If you own a relatively new phone, then it is highly likely your phone can house both a normal SIM card and an E-Sim. An E-Sim is a digital sim card (no fiddly physical sim swapping). With an E-Sim you can switch between different mobile networks and data plans using your phone’s settings. There are quite a few providers now but the ones we looked at were Ubigi, Airlo and Sakura.
Utilising an E-Sim – I use an iPhone 13 and my husband has an iPhone XR and we were both able to purchase and load E-Sims on to our phones when we travelled to Japan. We set up our e-sims at the airport before we left New Zealand and purchased a plan, so our phones were ready as soon as we landed. An E-Sim offered us data only and being on iPhone it meant we could utilise iMsg and FaceTime. So we weren’t charged by 2Degrees we turned our 2Degrees network off. When we needed to connect our daughters iPad or our laptops, we just turned on hot-spotting.
| E-Sim | Total Cost for 2 Phones |
| We opted to go with Ubigi, downloaded our e-sims for free and purchased the 30day plan for 50GB at $69usd x 2 ($112nzd). | $112 x 2 = $224nzd *Grab 20% off your first plan with my referral code: BU9A1VEU |
| Benefits – Convenience, we can turn this network on/off from settings on our phones, it’s also digital so means we don’t have to worry about lose physical sim cards etc. – Space saving, unlike a pocket wifi we don’t need an extra device etc. we just use our phones as we normally would (minus the phone/green bubble texts) – Flexibility, we could change providers if we found a cheaper deal and they have plans for just about every country – Instant activation, as soon as you purchase your plan your E-Sim is ready to go and use, no fiddling around with settings, just turn the network on and you’re ready to connect | Cons – Limited device compatibility, if you have an older phone it may not have E-Sim functions – In some parts of the country, the network used isn’t as strong as the network used in the big cities (we didn’t experience this and we used it from Tokyo to Okinawa but we were warned) – You will need to keep an eye on your data plan, if you run out of data some services will email you but generally your connection ability will just stop. This can be done normally through a services app |
Best option:
Overall, the best option for us was definitely the E-sim and if you have an E-sim compatible phone then this could prove to be the cheapest and most reliable and convenient option. If you use Ubigi make sure to insert our referral code and grab 20% off your first plan with my referral code: BU9A1VEU
Do you really need pocket wifi to get connected in Japan? My answer would be no, but if you are traveling in a bigger group or with older kids this could prove to be a better option than individual plans. There are downsides to all options, but for 2x adults we found the best option was an E-Sim plan.