If your phone supports eSIM, that's usually the better first move: you can buy and install a travel eSIM before you fly, land with working data, and skip the airport kiosk entirely. It also keeps your home SIM active in the physical slot for banking codes and calls, which is the setup most frequent travelers converge on. The trade-offs: travel eSIMs are typically data-only with no local phone number, per-gigabyte prices are often higher than local SIMs, and older or region-locked phones may not support eSIM at all.
Physical local SIMs win on price for longer stays and give you a real local number, which matters more than tourists expect, for ride-hailing apps, food delivery, restaurant bookings, and any local service that verifies by SMS. The costs are the errand itself, registration requirements with your passport in many countries, and juggling your home SIM.
A sensible decision rule: short trip, data-focused, eSIM.