Data for Manila, Cebu, Palawan and Siargao, installed before you fly. The Philippines is on the Asia plan, so a stopover in Hong Kong, Taipei or Singapore runs on the same eSIM. With 7,641 islands to choose from, the phone is the one thing that should not need planning.
The Philippines plan covers Philippines only.
The same 10 GB in a package that keeps working past Philippines.
20 other countries share the package with Philippines. A few of them:
What's included, when it starts, and how to get connected.
Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International is the country’s busiest airport, and the first hour there is a QR code, a terminal and the traffic. The SIM counters in arrivals are the one queue you can skip.
Install your onesim eSIM over Wi-Fi and leave the line switched off. In the 72 hours before you land, register on eTravel — free, and only at etravel.gov.ph — and save the QR code, because airlines can refuse to board you without it. Many passports, the UK’s among them, need no visa for 30 days; check what applies to yours, and carry proof of your flight out.
Once the plane is on the ground, open Settings → Mobile Data, pick the onesim line for data and switch on data roaming for that line alone. That first connection starts the package. Your home SIM stays in the phone with its roaming off, so your own number still receives the bank codes and the Grab verification text.
The kiosks in arrivals sell Philippine SIMs, and by law each one must be registered: a tourist shows a passport, an address in the Philippines and a ticket out, and the SIM switches itself off after 30 days. You are already online, so walk on. A green eTravel QR code sends you straight to immigration; a red one means a health check first.
At Terminal 3, Grab, JoyRide and Angkas pick up from a hub in the multi-storey car park. If you take a taxi, use a reputable company, or book a hotel transfer. The terminals are separate buildings linked by a paid shuttle, and some island flights moved from Manila to Clark in 2025, so check which airport your onward ticket names.
Around 20 tropical storms and typhoons enter Philippine waters in a typical year, most of them between June and November, and ferries and island-hopping boats are usually the first services cancelled when one passes. Leave a spare day between the last island and an international flight. Skip any boat that looks overcrowded, and wear the life jacket.
Grab’s own coverage list stops at the big cities: Metro Manila, Cebu, Davao, Iloilo and a few more. On Palawan, Siargao and Bohol it is tricycles, vans and boats, mostly paid in cash, so draw pesos before you leave the city. Book vans and boats through your hotel, and keep its address saved offline.
The Philippines is often said to have the world’s longest Christmas season, running through the ‘ber months’, and it opens with the same song: Jose Mari Chan’s ‘Christmas in Our Hearts’ from 1990, the best-selling Filipino Christmas song, back on every speaker in September. The memes of him arrive on schedule too; his own favourite has NASA recording the sound of the sun, and it is his song.
Francis Ford Coppola shot Apocalypse Now here from 1976, on a five-month schedule that stretched past a year after a typhoon wrecked the sets. The helicopter-and-surf scene was filmed at Baler, on Luzon’s Pacific coast, and the film is credited with starting the country’s surf scene. In 2023 a law made Baler the official ‘Birthplace of Philippine Surfing’.
Filipino spaghetti comes in a sweet red sauce with sliced hot dogs and cheese, often made with banana ketchup: a wartime answer to a shortage of tomatoes, credited to the food technologist María Orosa and dyed red to look the part. Jollibee serves it beside its fried chicken, and says its share of the local fast-food market beats every multinational chain’s combined.
Answers about data, coverage and setup for Philippines.
On the islands, yes: the package works across the Philippines on Globe, with nothing to switch for Palawan, Cebu or Siargao. Coverage is strong in Manila, Cebu and the towns, patchy on remote beaches and in the lagoons of an island-hopping tour, and usually gone out at sea, as on any SIM. Download maps and your boat and hotel details before you leave the pier.
Only if you buy a Philippine one. Under a 2022 law every local SIM must be registered: a tourist shows a passport, an address in the Philippines and a ticket out, and the SIM switches itself off after 30 days. onesim is a travel eSIM from abroad that roams on Globe the way your home SIM would, so there is nothing to register at the airport.
Not as a visitor, in most cases. GCash is built around a Philippine mobile number, and onesim is data-only, so there is no Philippine number to sign up with; the version for Filipinos abroad takes a foreign number but asks for a Philippine ID. Cards work in city hotels, malls and chains, and cash does the rest, especially on the islands.
