I have a couple more questions about cell phones. My every day phone is a Blackberry mainly for work and don't want to take it with me as I will be tempted to look at emails and take work calls. I do have another Handset which is GSM and unlocked so will take this. I have read the threads on cell phones but need some clarification as it got a little confusing. I am travelling to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Mozambique and was wondering if I can buy one Sim card at Johannesburg airport to cover all these countries or do I have to buy different ones for each country. Are they prepaid? Can we top them up? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hello Georgie,

When I travel in Southern Africa one of the first things I do when I land is buy a local SIM card...unless I'm going to Botswana, where cell coverage outside Maun is essentially nonexistent (there are no cell phone towers in the Delta!). I was able to get some signal in Maun but turned my phone off when I went out into the bush. Some other posters here have reported being able to pick up stray signals from Namibia while at some of the Kwando camps in the Linyanti area.

Since you're not going to be signing a contract, you'll need to do a pay-as-you-go option which you can top up along the way or prepay when you buy it.

Cheers,
Julian

Julian,

Thanks for your reply. Are you saying one sim will cover all countries in Southern Africa as long as you can get coverage. Is it easy to top up along the way? We will be spending 12 days in Botswana - Chobe, Zib, Moremi and delta. I am hoping that the lodges will have access to email and phone. It is the first time we will have left our young adult children at home and I need to feel connected just in case.

I looked into this as I'm traveling to South Africa and Namibia in September.

As far as I could tell, Vodacom is the only provider in South Africa which allows international roaming for prepaid and top up customers. With MTN and Cell C, international roaming appears to only be an option for contract customers. Someone please correct if I'm wrong.

With Vodacom, there are only 13 countries with international roaming available to prepaid/top up customers http://www.vodacom.co.za/services/tr..._and_topup.jsp so you'd be able to use the same SIM in South Africa and Mozambique but not Botswana or Zimbabwe. You'll need to get separate SIMs for those latter two countries. Also coverage appears to be pretty spotty in Mozambique and Botswana.

If you go to http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/index.shtml you can find all of the providers for each country with coverage maps and links to their websites.

You may also want to do a rate comparison between call costs using a local SIM vs your home provider's international roaming. If you're country hopping and not going to be making very many calls, it may not be cost effective to purchase multiple SIMs. Rate and roaming information is usually readily available on each provider's website.

Patty,

Thanks for that. I will check with my provider here and see how I go. Our family will have the itinerary and email and phone numbers of all the places we a re staying so I am sure they should get us in an emergency. It is a security blanket and I am so used to having a mobile to contact the family when I travel. Thanks again.