Mobile internet in Munich: a visitor’s guide

Roaming here, in three lines

• EU and EEA plans: roam like at home applies, within the fair-use limit.
• UK plans: it depends on your operator since Brexit.
• Plans from outside Europe: usually roaming charges or a daily pass.

The rules in full, country by country, are in our guide to Internet in Germany.

From the airport to the centre on the S-Bahn

Munich airport is a long way out of the city and the usual way in is the S-Bahn from the station under the terminal, which takes the better part of an hour. That is the first job for a phone that already has data: check which line and which direction, buy or show the ticket, and tell your accommodation when you will get there. Airport Wi-Fi tends to want a registration form or to hand you a short free window, and standing in arrivals with a suitcase is a poor moment to fill one in.

An eSIM is installed at home over Wi-Fi and does not start counting then. The plan begins when the phone first connects in Germany, so it is working as you come off flight mode on the taxiway.

Tunnels, and the weeks the city fills up

Munich moves people underground on the U-Bahn and half underground on the S-Bahn. In the tunnels coverage depends on the line and on the station: some platforms and stretches have it and others do not, so a live route can freeze between two stops and catch up when you come back out. Beer hall cellars, museum basements and thick-walled buildings behave the same way, and none of it changes with a different SIM.

Oktoberfest is the other one. When several hundred thousand people stand in the same few blocks, every phone there is competing for the same cells and the network gets congested, so treat a slow phone as likely rather than surprising. The practical answer is old-fashioned: agree a fixed meeting point and a time with the people you are with before you go in, and save the map, the ticket and the address to the phone in advance instead of loading them in the crowd.

Day trips: the castles, the Alps and Salzburg

• Neuschwanstein and the lakes: a day out by train and bus, still inside Germany, so a Germany plan keeps working. The phone matters most for the connections on the way.
• The Alps: in deep valleys and road tunnels the signal drops for everyone, because the mountain is in the way. Download the route and the map before you set off.
• Salzburg: close, but it is Austria, a different country. A Germany pack stops giving data the moment you cross the border, even though the European roaming rule still applies to your own home plan.

For Salzburg the options are an Austria plan, covered in the Austria data guide, or a Europe eSIM that works on both sides of the border without swapping anything.

How much data

It depends on the days, on whether you watch video and on whether you share with a laptop. How much data do I need turns that into a number from what you actually do.

Prices for Germany

Germany data eSIMs: 3 GB for €4.79, 5 GB for €6.99, 10 GB for €11.49 and 20 GB for €17.29. Hotspot is allowed and we do not cap the speed, so 5G works where the network has it. Topping up does not mean reinstalling, and it is data only, so your usual line keeps your number.