Only time I’ve used an eSIM was a potential problem with roaming on our corporate deal (was supped to be free roaming but they stop said $1.80 a meg) when I landed in New York. I was connecting before we’d finished taxiing.
I have no idea where to get a local sim from, but it would mean I wouldn’t have my normal phone number (unless I had a phone with two physical sims - very rare), and presumably would have had to find a shop at 3 am body clock time and 10pm local time. Maybe there was one post customs, I don’t know as I was autopiloting to the taxi.
>a phone with two physical sims - very rare
...? - they are literally the norm in Android land nowadays, it's only Apple that INSISTS upon a single SIM or, in third-world variants, two eSIMs.