[lxn]

I've been using eSIMs for a few years, and my experience is similar to yours. I'm an expat living abroad, and I want to keep my old phone number (from my home country) and my new phone number (from the country I currently live in).

After two days, my first phone with an eSIM died, so I had to go to a telecommunication provider's physical store to install a new eSIM on the replacement phone.

Now, I try to keep my main SIM physical and the secondary (less important) one as an eSIM. In my case, my native country's phone number is now an eSIM.

You can ask your provider for a blank physical SIM, and in case you lose your eSIM, you can usually call them, go through the identification process, and they can move your number back to the physical SIM you have as a backup based on the serial number on the SIM. I do have blank physical SIMs for my eSIM. I never had to use them, but my girlfriend did (she's using the same setup). Once you're back to physical SIM, you can usually change to eSIM via the app. Be aware that some companies charge this switch between SIM and eSIM.

Having the secondary number as an eSIM makes it easier to use virtual SIM providers like Airolo when travelling since I don't have an issue disconnecting that number for the duration of the holidays.

If you have just one number, I'll suggest to keep it as a physical SIM.