UK eSIM

Mobile Networks & Coverage in the UK

e1sim UK plans run on EE — the UK's largest and most awarded mobile network, with 4G LTE coverage reaching over 99% of the UK population and the most extensive 5G network in Britain. You get a strong signal throughout London (including the Underground on most central lines), Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Bath, Brighton and all major cities, as well as along the South Downs coastal paths, in the Cotswolds and at the main heritage sites across England, Scotland and Wales.

Important note for EU travellers: the United Kingdom left the European Union in 2020. EU 'Roam Like at Home' does not apply in the UK — European carriers charge international roaming fees here, often €3–10 per day or more. Visitors from the EU, USA, Canada, Australia and all other countries will find a prepaid e1sim plan significantly cheaper than roaming.

London — Royal Parks, West End Theatre & World-Class Culture

London is one of the great cities of the world — a place of extraordinary density where a Roman amphitheatre, a Norman fortress, a Wren cathedral and a Foster skyscraper can occupy the same square mile, and where the cultural programme on any given week rivals that of an entire country. The eight Royal Parks — covering 5,000 acres of green space in the heart of the city — are among London's greatest gifts to its visitors. Hyde Park offers the Serpentine Gallery, the Diana Memorial Fountain and the famous Speakers' Corner where anyone can stand on a soapbox and address the crowd. Regent's Park contains the Open Air Theatre (Shakespeare in the English summer drizzle is an institution), the rose gardens and London Zoo. St James's Park, the oldest of the Royal Parks, frames Buckingham Palace at one end with the pelicans of its lake visible from the footbridge; Kensington Gardens merges with Hyde Park and shelters the Albert Memorial and the world-class V&A and Natural History Museums just beyond its gates.

The West End is the centre of world theatre. On any night, a hundred shows are running within a square mile of Shaftesbury Avenue: long-running musicals (The Phantom of the Opera ran here for 35 years), Shakespeare at the reconstructed Globe on Bankside, opera and ballet at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, and a constant stream of new productions that go on to define international theatre. Summer brings additional outdoor events: the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall (eight weeks of nightly concerts from late July to mid-September), open-air cinema in Somerset House courtyard, the Notting Hill Carnival in August (Europe's largest street festival) and Shakespeare's Globe outdoor season. Your eSIM handles everything from buying last-minute tickets on the walk to the theatre to navigating the maze of streets from the Tube exit.

London's cultural institutions are world-class and, uniquely, almost entirely free. The British Museum holds the Rosetta Stone, the Elgin Marbles and eight million objects spanning two million years of human civilisation. The National Gallery contains the Western canon from Botticelli to Van Gogh. Tate Modern occupies a former power station on the South Bank; its Turbine Hall hosts the most ambitious contemporary art installations in the world. The Victoria and Albert Museum is the planet's greatest collection of design and decorative arts. Borough Market under London Bridge is the city's finest food market — arrive hungry and leave carrying cheese, charcuterie, sourdough and olive oil. Shoreditch, just east of the City, is the capital's creative heartland: street art, independent coffee roasters, vintage shops and the best brunch queues in the country.

Oxford, Cambridge, Seven Sisters Cliffs & Country Estates

Oxford and Cambridge — the oldest universities in the English-speaking world and rivals since the 12th century — are both within 60–80 minutes of London by fast train and reward a full day's exploration each. Oxford's honey-stone colleges cascade along the High Street and the Broad; Christ Church, the largest and grandest, was used as the exterior and dining hall for Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films. The Bodleian Library — one of the oldest in Europe — holds every book published in Britain under legal deposit. The pub where Tolkien and C.S. Lewis met to share chapters of their works in progress is still open; the Covered Market still sells handmade gloves and artisan cheese as it has for two centuries. Cambridge has the River Cam and the punts: flat-bottomed boats propelled by pole, the most iconic and least efficient form of transport in England, best hired at Silver Street Bridge for a slow drift past the Mathematical Bridge, King's College Chapel and the Backs of the colleges reflected in still water.

The Seven Sisters are a sequence of eight chalk headlands — the name refers to seven of the eight — on the East Sussex coast between Seaford and Eastbourne, formed where the South Downs meet the English Channel in a wall of brilliant white chalk cliffs up to 162 metres high. The walk along the clifftop from Birling Gap to Cuckmere Haven, with the striped green-and-white cliffs falling sheer to the sea and the chalk stacks of the Needles visible on clear days, is one of the most dramatic coastal walks in England. Nearby Beachy Head, at 162 metres the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain, is accessible by foot along the South Downs Way. The cliffs are best seen in strong afternoon sun when the white chalk blazes against a deep blue sea — typically from a viewpoint at Cuckmere Haven where the meanders of the river mouth frame the cliffs in the background. Both Eastbourne and Brighton — a vibrant seaside city with the Royal Pavilion, independent Lanes shopping streets and a famous pier — are reachable from London in under 90 minutes.

London's countryside is surprisingly rich in historic estates and palaces. Windsor Castle — the world's oldest and largest inhabited castle, a royal residence since William the Conqueror — is 40 minutes from London Paddington; the Changing of the Guard here is a ceremonial spectacle that predates the tourist industry by several centuries. Hampton Court Palace, Henry VIII's favourite residence, is reachable by boat from Westminster on the Thames, its Tudor kitchens, haunted galleries and maze of yew hedges demanding a full day. Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire — a UNESCO World Heritage Site, birthplace of Winston Churchill and the largest private house in England — sits in a Capability Brown landscape of lakes and formal gardens. The Cotswolds, just two hours from London, offer a landscape of honey-stone villages (Bourton-on-the-Water, Bibury, Castle Combe) and ancient market towns that have barely changed since the wool trade made them prosperous in the Middle Ages. Stonehenge — the prehistoric stone circle on Salisbury Plain, 4,500 years old and still not fully explained — is 90 minutes by car from London and most extraordinary at dawn.