Communication & Network.

Friday, 31.Mar 2023

One of the best thing about going on vacation is being “off the grid” getting away from your daily work and life, and truly immersing yourself in a different environment. Africa safari is all about turning out of your busy wired life and turning into the natural world around you.

But being far from home can also be scary, for yourself and those you leave behind. A working cell phone can be good to have, even if you only use it to say “am here everything is great!”

One of the first things you’ll notice is that nearly everyone has a cell phone in Africa. The African continent is one of the fastest-growing in the world, and in some areas, Africa is forging ahead with ingenious uses of the cell phone technology. Villagers can use their phones to find out which market to take their produce, they can use mobiles to educate children. Exciting as all this may be, it does not necessarily mean that your fancy phone will be of any use to you while on safari other than maybe getting good pictures of sightings but you must do some preparation before you depart or you are likely to be stuck with no signal at all. Check with your cell provider for the best way to make sure you can be reached while on vacation in Africa, check in with your cell phone provider, most larger companies like AT&T, sprint, Vodaphone and Verizon have special international plans. Sign up in advance to make sure you don’t end up paying an arm and leg for a basic call or text. Specify the country you are traveling to. Ask for details on rates and find out if it will cost extra for your friends and family to call you too. Ask how they charge for basic roaming fees. Find out if it is cheaper to text than to call, as this is often the case. Be aware that roaming in Tanzania can be crippling if not properly researched

How to stay in touch with home while on safari

As many tourists prepare for their African safari, many of our clients worry about whether they will be able to communicate with their loved ones or friends they left back home. There is no need to worry about this anymore as you take your safari to Tanzania. With technological advancement, you can easily contact your people through the internet using your mobile phone, laptop, or your ipad. Fortunately, you can buy internet data for your phone, or laptop through the local mobile networks such as Airtel and Vodacom. The mobile internet service will enable you to communicate with your beloved ones miles away, usually in the lodges they always have WI-FI in the rooms but while at the main area you won’t be able to get acess because it’s a place for people to interact and get to know one another and also to interact with your waiter / waitress.

Is there internet access while on safari in Tanzania?

Tanzania’s internet, postal service, and media are things that everybody can afford since everybody today owns a cellphone or smartphone in east Africa, which is utterly enamored with them. As a result, the old telecom office’s phone service are no longer frequently needed. Major hotels and lodges near National parks and other tourist destinations offer good, high-speed internet connectivity, and they typically provide WI_FI connections to let their guests take advantage of the service.

Tented camps are in extremely distant locations so most times they won’t have a good connection, and cellular service will be patchy. If you are concerned about safety in Tanzania camps, rest assured that you will never be completely cut off because all camps and lodges have satellite phones. Tanzania has 22 national parks, and nearly all of them have internet access and connections. You won’t experience any internet problems, especially in some of the well known safari parks like the Serengeti, the Ngorongoro crater, Tarangire, etc.

The only place or attraction in Tanzania where there was no internet access was on the roof of Africa-Mount Kilimanjaro, but currently, Tanzania has opened an internet installation and all processes have been completed and launched and announced to the to the public and ready to be used by visitors climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. This was announced officially by Tanzania’s minister of information, communication, and information technology.

Bringing your smartphone from home to Tanzania.

Of course, you are free to use your own phone and SIM card from home if you bring them with you. Having said that, this can be costly, additionally, you frequently need to inform your network before departing for East Africa. If you don’t you’ll probably find that when you get there, you won’t be able to use the phone.

If you own a smartphone, don’t forget to review the price for getting emails, downloading data, etc, if its expensive (as it frequently is), remember to turn off “data roaming” (ie., the internet connection on your phone. Otherwise when you get home, you’ll discover that your phone actually cost more that your Safari/hike.

Finally, try adding extra “0” to the front of the international dialing code if you are gaveing problems calling home from Tanzania. For example, dial 00044 or (000144) instead of merely 004 if you want to call UK but the phone keeps failing to connect.