I understand. Better to be safer than sorry. You're right. Some of the public Wi-Fi is were inconsistent but we survived. However the pocket Wi-Fi will be more reliable. Enjoy!

I rented 2 hot pocket wifi units for our family of 4 adults. this would allow us to explore on our own, as I knew we would at least be in pairs. This was super helpful when we wanted to shop at different stores. You just need to remember who is carrying the hotspots. Pocket wifi was super super easy to activate & connect. the hotspot lasted about 12-hrs per charge & having an extra battery helps too.

So with a pocket wifi, put my iPhone on airplane mode, and connect to wifi just like if I were in a cafe? And then is the pocket wifi always turned on or only turned on when using it?

@14 Derek

Could you kindly elaborate what was the problem with setting up esim from Airalo?

I am considering Airalo 20 GB.

Have unlocked Samsung S22, but I never used esim before...

Anybody with that phone using Airalo?

All physical SIMs work fine in all smartphones and absolutely nothing will happen to your phone or your regular connection if you add additional APN settings (of course you need an unlocked phone) since all you have to do when you return home is insert your normal local SIM and "tick" the already stored local APN settings.

All this of course if you are under 90 years old :) and actually know how to operate your smartphone .

The instructions that come with Japanese SIMs are very straightforward and easy to follow and will show you how to change your APN settings.

I'm sorry but that's simply not true.

A lot of people have reported that you had to change settings and it made it hard for their phone to work when they returned.

In addition my friend bought a SIM from haneda airport and was not able to program it by following the instructions. She even asked cell phone store staff to help her and they couldn't make it work even though her phone is unlocked and it worked in other countries she has traveled to around the world. Pocket Wi-Fi is a simple n Surefire way to get the Wi-Fi you need.

If you seek to get a sim or a sim, the staff may not be able to help you and you won't get a refund and all your money will be down to drain

* lot of people have reported that you had to change settings and it made it hard for their phone to work when they returned.*

That's because they don't know how their phones work and are to lazy to read the supplied instructions..my 10 year old son managed to do it so it's a no brainer as long as you "read the,you know what, manual :)

Tripadvisor staff removed this post because it did not meet Tripadvisor's forum guideline with regards to harassment of another user.

If your phone supports it, use an esim and you don’t have to touch your physical SIM card. We used the Ubigi esim card. A big advantage of an esim is that you can set it up right before you leave home and know it works. Ubigi hs a nice app you download and tells you exactly what to do. It verifies the connection. When we were in the air, I switched off my home sim and enabled the esim. Once we landed it connected to the network within a couple of minutes and I was online. Returning home, I did the reverse and had no issues connecting to my home sim.

Pocket WiFi has a couple of advantages - it is a “slightly” easier connection and I think people are more used to switching WiFi networks back home. They never need to touch their sim configuration so it seems more difficult. Pocket WiFi also lets multiple people share a connection. Downsides are charging, carrying, and needing to keep your party together

The eSIM makes it possible to split up. There were multiple times that my wife wanted to shop while I went to look at a temple. There was also a situation where we got split up transferring trains. Since we both had esims - no panic just a WhatsApp message to agree on which station we would reconnect.

Each person need to decide what is important to them before selecting the best option. I see other posts where people use public WiFi and still like paper maps. I prefer the ability to always be connected to wander and use translation, online maps for walking, a quick check of reviews for lunch. Esim was the right option for my trip but pocket WiFi could easily work for someone else.

I just returned from Japan yesterday. While out there, I used a physical sim. Had no problems at all using it on hol, and on return to the UK, my UK sim resumed working without me having to change any settings on my phone.