Costa Rica eSIM

Internet in Costa Rica is generally fine in populated areas and along the main routes between the capital and the popular coastal towns. Beyond that, nobody publishes signal data for Corcovado, the Monteverde cloud forest trails or the road onto the Osa peninsula. The same goes for the stretches of the Caribbean coast between towns. We could not find a national coverage percentage from a regulator that we could verify and date, so none is quoted here. Download offline maps for the whole country on hotel wifi before you set off, and expect to be without signal inside the parks. Any data roaming in Costa Rica on your home line lands on your own carrier's bill, so switch cellular data off on that line before you land. Cell phone service in Costa Rica on your normal number keeps receiving calls and texts at your carrier's rates, while the travel plan carries data. Lodges and tour operators outside the towns often prefer a phone call, which you can place through an internet calling app over the eSIM. A Costa Rica SIM card bought in person from a local operator is the only way to get a Costa Rican number. Some US plans already include Costa Rica, so read your own tariff before you buy anything.

The best eSIM for Costa Rica is sized for driving days, since maps run for hours between towns and hardly at all in a park. Lodges and hotels almost always have wifi, so most visitors need less than they expect. Roamify has the broadest range here, from a single day to a month, with capped plans up to 20 GB and unlimited options. Airalo runs from a week to a month, adds unlimited plans of its own and carries the largest capped bundle here at 50 GB. A Costa Rica eSIM unlimited data plan from either of them suits anyone uploading video every evening or working from the road. Esimaccess covers one to seven days only, with capped plans up to 10 GB, which suits a short stop in San Jose before a flight onward. Telcovision starts at 15 days and runs to 30, capped at 10 GB, a shape built for a two week loop. Yesim offers seven days with a single gigabyte, enough for messaging on a resort stay but thin for a road trip. A Costa Rica travel eSIM for a fortnight rarely needs to be large, as long as offline maps carry the navigation. Nothing listed for Costa Rica lasts beyond a month, so a long winter in Puerto Viejo means a second purchase. Guessing low is easy to fix, because an e-SIM for Costa Rica can sit beside a second plan from this page on the same phone.