Google Maps, WhatsApp, Netflix: Data Use Abroad

Navigation is tiny — active Google Maps directions use only about 5–10 MB per hour. Messaging is almost free for text and modest for calls. The budget-killer is video: Netflix, YouTube and streaming apps can burn through 1–3 GB an hour in HD, and autoplaying social feeds are not far behind at 100–200 MB an hour. Knowing which apps are cheap and which are expensive is the whole game when you are travelling on a data plan rather than an unlimited home contract.

Below is the approximate hourly cost of the apps travellers lean on most, and a practical way to trim each one. All figures are typical ranges, not exact promises — real usage varies with quality settings, signal and how you use each app — but they are accurate enough to plan around.

Google Maps & navigation

Maps is the app travellers worry about most and the one they should worry about least. Actively following turn-by-turn directions sips data. What costs more is repeatedly searching for places, panning around unfamiliar areas and loading fresh map tiles — so the fix is to load the area once, in advance.

Activity	Approx. per hour	Trim it by…
Active navigation	≈5–10 MB	Downloading the area offline before you go
Searching and browsing the map	≈20–40 MB	Saving pins and offline maps on Wi-Fi

Download an offline map of your destination while you are still on home Wi-Fi. Turn-by-turn directions then run almost entirely from the stored map, dropping your navigation cost close to zero and giving you a backup for the moments when signal disappears in a tunnel or a backstreet.

WhatsApp, iMessage & messaging

Text messaging is effectively free — you could chat all week and barely register it on your data counter. Calls cost more, and the real surprise for most people is media auto-download: every photo and video dropped into a busy group chat quietly downloads over your travel plan unless you tell it not to.

Activity	Approx. per hour	Trim it by…
Text messaging	under 1 MB	Nothing needed — it's negligible
Voice calls	≈30–60 MB (0.5–1 MB/min)	Using Wi-Fi for long calls
Video calls	≈300–500 MB	Switching to audio-only on the move
Photo & video auto-download	Varies — often the hidden cost	Turning off auto-download in settings

The one setting worth changing before you travel is media auto-download. In WhatsApp, open Settings › Storage and data and set photos, video and documents to download on Wi-Fi only. It stops group chats quietly eating your allowance while your phone is in your pocket. Remember, too, that these are data-based calls: travel eSIM plans are data-only, so voice and video work through apps like WhatsApp and FaceTime rather than a traditional phone line.

Netflix, YouTube & video

This is where data plans live or die. Streaming video is comfortably the most expensive thing you can do on your phone abroad, and the difference between quality settings is enormous — HD can use ten times what data-saver mode does.

Activity	Approx. per hour	Trim it by…
Data-saver / low quality	≈250–300 MB	Setting the app to save data by default
Standard definition	≈700 MB	Lowering quality on mobile
HD streaming	≈1–3 GB	Downloading on Wi-Fi instead

The honest advice is to download before you stream. Save the films, episodes and playlists you want on hotel Wi-Fi the night before, and watch them offline the next day for no data at all. If you do stream live, drop the quality — on a phone screen you will rarely notice the difference, and you will use a fraction of the data. Tethering a laptop to your phone to stream is the fastest way of all to empty a plan, because a laptop defaults to full-resolution video; if you rely on tethering, our guide on why a hotspot might not be working covers the settings that trip people up.

Instagram, TikTok & social feeds

Social apps feel light because each post is small, but the feeds autoplay video endlessly, and that adds up faster than people expect. A casual scroll through Instagram Reels or TikTok is closer to watching video than reading text — which is exactly why it is the heaviest everyday drain for most travellers.

Activity	Approx. per hour	Trim it by…
Scrolling video feeds	≈100–200+ MB	Enabling the app's data-saver mode
Uploading photos and stories	≈5–20 MB each	Posting on Wi-Fi in the evening

Both Instagram and TikTok have a data-saver setting that reduces preloading and video quality. Turning it on roughly halves the cost of a scrolling session, and the feed still looks perfectly fine on a phone. Save posting your own photos and videos for the hotel Wi-Fi, where uploads are free.

Spotify & music

Audio is far lighter than video, so music streaming rarely breaks a data budget on its own — but hours of high-quality streaming across a week still add up, and it is trivially easy to avoid.

Activity	Approx. per hour	Trim it by…
Streaming (normal quality)	≈50–75 MB	Lowering streaming quality
Streaming (high quality)	≈100–150 MB	Downloading playlists offline

If you have a paid music subscription, download your playlists and albums on Wi-Fi before you leave and switch the app to offline mode. You then get your soundtrack for the whole trip without touching your travel plan. If you do stream, the normal-quality setting sounds fine through earphones and uses noticeably less.

Add it up for your trip

Put the pieces together and a normal day is far more modest than the scary streaming numbers suggest — because you spend most of the day not streaming. Here is an honest worked example for a typical sightseeing day.

• Navigation to and around the sights, ~1 hour: ≈5–10 MB
• Messaging and sharing photos throughout the day: ≈20–40 MB
• Checking social feeds, ~45 minutes in total: ≈75–150 MB
• Browsing — restaurant reviews, tickets, opening times, ~1 hour: ≈50–80 MB

Add those up and a full day of ordinary sightseeing comes to roughly 150–300 MB — as long as you keep the video streaming for the evening Wi-Fi. Across a week that is somewhere around 1–2 GB, which is why light-to-moderate travellers get by on surprisingly little. Start streaming HD over mobile, though, and a single evening can double your daily total on its own.

For the full weekly picture — how these daily numbers roll up into a plan size, broken down by traveller type — see our companion guide on how much data you really need for a week abroad.

Once you know your daily rate, browse eSIM Today's data plans and pick an allowance with a little room to spare.

FAQ

How much data does one hour of Netflix use? It depends on the quality setting. In data-saver mode Netflix uses roughly 250–300 MB per hour, standard definition around 700 MB per hour, and HD anywhere from 1 to 3 GB per hour. Lowering the video quality in the app's settings is the single biggest saving you can make abroad.

Does Google Maps work offline? Yes. You can download a map of a city or region while on Wi-Fi, and Google Maps will then give turn-by-turn directions with almost no data. Search, live traffic and public-transport routing still need a connection, but the core navigation works offline once the area is saved.

Which apps use the most data abroad? Video is the biggest drain by far — Netflix, YouTube and other streaming apps can use 1–3 GB an hour in HD. Social feeds with autoplaying video, such as Instagram and TikTok, come next at roughly 100–200 MB an hour. Maps, messaging and music are comparatively light.

How do I stop apps using data in the background? On iPhone, go to Settings › Mobile Data and switch off the toggle for any app you don't need on your travel line. On Android, open Settings › Network & internet › Data usage and restrict background data per app. Turning off photo auto-download in messaging apps also helps a lot.