Individual tourism after the era of templates: why South Africans are increasingly building holidays

At the same time, plans remain flexible and can easily change along the way depending on weather, mood, or a spontaneous recommendation. But the more individual the itinerary becomes, the greater the dependence on connectivity. Navigation, bookings, and transfers all require stable internet. And this is where unstable Wi-Fi or expensive roaming turns into a real problem.

Those who have already experienced this often solve the connectivity issue before departure and choose a travel eSIM, such as the one offered by the innovative Swiss provider Yesim. It allows users to set up mobile internet in advance, so navigation and all essential services are available from the moment of arrival.

Holidays without templates: how travel personalization has become the new normal

Modern holidays are becoming harder to describe in a single word, because they are no longer just “a beach” or “Europe.” South Africans are increasingly choosing a combination of different scenarios that each person assembles for themselves.

Some book a museum weekend in Madrid and combine it with a food tour in northern Spain. Others fly to the United States to mix a concert of their favorite band in New York with hiking trails in California’s national parks. For some, a wellness reset in Iceland smoothly turns into a week of remote work from cozy Reykjavik.

This is also supported by data: according to research by TGM Research, more than a third of South Africans plan their trips independently without travel agents or packaged tours. And a Booking.com survey of 29,000 travelers from 33 countries shows that travel is becoming increasingly individualised.

Why tourists are abandoning traditional travel

People are tired of conveyor-belt itineraries where everything — from breakfast menus to the exact minute of boarding an excursion bus — is known months before departure. Today, luxury in travel means the ability to wake up in Lisbon and decide whether to visit a museum or head to the coast, without having to follow a guide.

Another factor is that building an itinerary independently has become much easier. Travelers have effectively become their own agents, using a trusted stack of services. Skyscanner or Google Flights help the hunt for flexible flights, while Booking.com or Airbnb make it easy to find accommodation tailored specifically to individual needs. GetYourGuide or Viator are designed for booking cooking classes or mountain trails.

Tourists increasingly want to organize holidays that match their own rhythm, tastes, and mood. But this ideal autonomy only works as long as your smartphone stays connected to the internet.

Connectivity as the foundation of an independent itinerary

Navigation, bookings, communication with accommodation hosts, and transport searches are needed in real time, not only in a hotel with Wi-Fi. When moving from city to city, any connectivity issues become an immediate issue. There are the usual options for mobile internet, but each comes with its own limitations.

Roaming from major operators quickly drains the budget and often turns into a gamble with unpredictable bills upon returning home. A local SIM card is also a questionable compromise. Instead of going straight to your hotel, you spend your first hour in a new country looking for a mobile shop and registering your passport, repeating the same ritual at every border. Public Wi-Fi turns you into a digital hostage: the internet disappears as soon as you leave the café or hotel lobby, and its speed is often not even enough to load a navigation app.

That is why experienced travelers look for more convenient solutions before the trip. One such option is a travel eSIM from Yesim. It uses a microchip that is already built into most smartphones and other devices, allowing you to connect to mobile internet without replacing your main SIM card.

How Yesim eSIM works

Leano from Cape Town is planning a complex itinerary: Lisbon — Barcelona — Paris. His home operator, MTN, has very expensive roaming rates, and he does not want to waste time registering local SIM cards in every new airport.

As an alternative, the traveler chooses the provider Yesim. While still at home and without any rush, Leano checks device compatibility, downloads the app, and installs an eSIM profile. To test the connection quality, he also purchases a small trial package of 500 MB for a symbolic R9 in advance. After landing, Leano simply activates the profile and immediately starts using the internet.

Thanks to the provider’s partnership with 800+ operators, the smartphone automatically finds the strongest signal in each new city. This is especially important on non-standard routes, where connectivity can be unstable. In such situations, Yesim instantly switches to the best available network, although users can also manually select an operator in the settings if they prefer.

Yesim offers plans for different types of trips. The Pay & Fly pay-as-you-go option is a universal solution for 170+ countries, where you pay only for the gigabytes you actually use. Global Package (80+ countries) and Global Plus (140+ countries) are prepaid plans for travelers who prefer a fixed budget and clear cost control. If you’re heading to the EU, the eSIM Europe & UK (30+ countries) provides a single eSIM with worldwide coverage and seamless switching.

In addition, the Multiple eSIMs feature allows users to manage several profiles from a single account — useful when traveling with family or a group. At the same time, the main phone number remains active, while expenses stay transparent and can be easily tracked in the app.

Extra bonus: new users can use the promo code GETYESIM15 to get a 15% discount.

Personalised travel in 2026

Gastronomic route

Food lovers are drawn to places where cuisine becomes part of the experience. For example, in Lyon, everything starts at Les Halles Paul Bocuse market — here, tasting oysters and cheeses can easily replace any lunch. For dinner, head to the Vieux Lyon district to discover bouchons — small historic bistros whose traditional recipes have remained unchanged for centuries.

In Marrakech, the medina itself guides you by the scent of spices toward Jemaa el-Fna square. In the evening, it turns into a huge open-air kitchen serving harira soup and merguez sausages. The main delicacy is tanjia (meat slow-cooked in clay pots over hammam embers), best enjoyed with mint tea.

Event-based route

In the summer of 2026, thousands of South Africans will travel alongside their national team to the World Cup in Mexico and the United States. Many will find themselves in cities that are not usually part of standard tourist routes.

Guadalajara is the second-largest city in Mexico, known for one of the country’s best street markets, Mercado Libertad, and its picturesque historic center. Kansas City, meanwhile, is famous for its barbecue and the 18th & Vine district — home to the American Jazz Museum and The Blue Room club, where jazz is played every evening.

Organizing connectivity across such a continental trip will be made easier with the Football Fan Plan 2026 from Yesim. It is a single tariff with global coverage and seamless switching between the three host countries. 10 GB for 60 days costs around 490 ZAR ($25), and the plan is available for purchase until July 31, 2026.

Mixed format city + reset

Some trips are built on contrast: an intense city experience followed by complete silence and relaxation. In practice, this can look like a few days in Dubai and then a break on Zanzibar island. Or the other way around — starting with a beach stay in Nungwi with no plans at all, followed by Stone Town with its narrow Arab streets and spice tours.

Travel by interest, not by country

Sometimes a journey starts not with choosing a country, but with deciding what you want to do. Surfers head to Bali or Mauritius, birdwatchers go to the Great Rift in Tanzania. Meanwhile, BookTok fans add literary tours in Edinburgh and Dublin to their list.

Flexible-duration travel route

The length of a trip doesn’t have to depend only on fixed ticket dates, but on the pace that suits you best. For example, the same Lisbon can be experienced in completely different ways. Some will enjoy five intense days, while others will prefer a slow two-week stay — working from cafés in the morning and heading to Porto or the Algarve in the afternoon.

The era of one-size-fits-all holidays is slowly coming to an end

The classic vacation has lost its monopoly as people gained the ability to decide for themselves how they want to travel abroad. More and more tourists are building trips around their own style and preferences. This is what leads to the most memorable journeys — the ones that truly stay with you.

In this kind of travel style, it’s important that logistics adapt to you, not the other way around. The ideal internet on the road is the type you don’t notice — it simply works in the background while you capture the moment. This is exactly the kind of seamless support the Yesim eSIM is designed for. It takes care of the technical side so that connectivity doesn’t distract you from what matters most — the experience itself. DM