Stay connected in Korea – Evergreen SIM card Review

There are few ways to stay connected to the world and, more important, your family and friends when you travel to Korea.

You can rent your SIM card from Olleh KT which requires you to stay in Korea for at least 3 days before you can apply for it and to return the SIM card at the end of your trip, before you leave Korea.

Or you can rent a phone at Incheon Airport after landing, last time I checked the price was 5000 KRW/5 USD a day. The renting-plans got me confused right from the start, but if you’re interested you can check it out here.

Me and my friend even tried to buy KT Olleh 1 day wi-fi but it just didn’t work out. The payment didn’t go through no matter how many time we try with different credit cards so we just gave up in the end.

Before coming to Seoul I did a lot of research to find an easy way to keep me connected to the internet world throughout the trip, I came across Evergreen Mobile twitter page and decided to give it a try.

EG SIM card website: http://www.egsimcard.co.kr/eng/main/index.asp
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/egsimcard
Twitter: https://twitter.com/egmobile123

I bought two SIM cards, one for me and one for my sister, we faced some problems trying to insert the SIM card too so I hope what I share below will be helpful.

Getting a SIM Card

First step, get yourself an account on EG SIM website, this is something that can be done easily. I wasn’t be able to register at first though, I tried to do it with both Firefox and Google Chrome but still no result so I ended up using Safari on my phone and only then it went through.

They just launched their offline buying places around the time I visited Korea so I don’t have a chance to check them out but you can find the list here: Buy EG SIM CARD Offline

After that just sign in and go to Buy Online to order your SIM card, remember to choose the right card type and the data plan you want. You can choose to whether pick the SIM card up at collecting locations or have it shipped to you (with extra EMS fee of course). After clicking buy you’ll have to submit a photo of your passport and others info about your phone, it all comes with clear guidelines. Pay with your credit card and you’ll receive a confirmation email from EG and it’s done!

To collect the SIM card, check out there collecting places list: Where to Collect EG SIM CARD

Connect your phone

I chose to collect my card at K BOOKS, Incheon Airport Exit 7. The staff at the book store gave us a list to sign our names on and we got our card. My sister’s SIM card worked fine after a few time of turning her phone on and off, mine wasn’t. It just refused to work so after the 10th time I reached the staff at K BOOKS for help but she can’t do much either. Her English was limited so she called EG for us and the staff on the phone asked me to turn off my phone so she can check the SIM card. We struggled for about an hour at the airport till EG staff on facebook replied my message and asked me to check APN settings as in this link: About using EG SIM Card

AND IT WORKED! Yay!!!!! So if you have any problem trying to connect your phone just ask them, it might take time but they faced every kind of problems before, it’s best to take advises from them, isn’t it?

When your data usage are getting low you’ll receive SMS remind you to top-up in both Korean and English:

Top-up

To top-up your account balance, check out this tutorial from EG blog: How to top up with EG card?They have all the details and pictures for you to follow.

For 2 weeks, I spent all 1GB with my wi-fi completely turned off (yes, I didn’t use wi-fi at all while you can get free wifi at your hotel room, subway stations and café and restaurants… I just wanted to see how much I would spend).

This is my experience, hope it’ll be helpful for your trip!