I bought my wife a calling card for calls from the US to Namibia - pretty inexpensive, actually.

However, I can't seem to find any calling cards for the reverse - to call from Namibia to the states.

Any ideas on that one? Would I be able to buy a similar calling card once I arrived in Namibia, maybe at the airport? Anyone recall about how much that costs? Any other suggestions? Honestly all I'd be doing was just calling her to let her know I'm at a particular location, and then she'd turn around and call me right back with her calling card to save on the rates.

Cell phone worked just fine.

My cell phone with a locally purchased SIM worked fine when in range of a tower. My host also had a landline.......no power, but he had phone.

Namibia is not a primitive or backward country. Telephone, cellphone, internet, fax, telegraph - all that works. Just remember the time zone difference - you don't want to piss someone off by calling or receiving a call at 3 o'clock in the morning.

Namibiahunter

I'm having the same issue. My cell carrier Alltel does not have service from Namibia.They referred me to a cell rental company that wants 4.75 a minute plus rental and shipping fees. Got an overseas calling card from Qwest only to find out it doesn't work in Namibia, Botswana or Zimbabwe. My phone won't take a SIM card.

The backwardness of Namibia is not the issue, just need some means of charging the call home.

My cell phones never worked there. I just had my PH and his office manager send emails to my wife on both trips. I did manage a 15 minute call from the Safari Court Hotel the night before I left last year, which cost about as much as the room for the night.

Landlines worked great from the ranch, both in 2004 and 2007, when we absolutely had to talk. The easiest was to just write out a note and have the secretary email it while we were out hunting. They had satellite also, but we never needed it.

We are leaving our two kids, 5 & 7 behind for three weeks. Promised them I would call a few times. May just have to call collect and pay a fortune, or rent a satellite phone I guess.

i thought one of the reasons to go hunting in Africa was to get away from phones, tv, emails, etc. i make it a point not to tell anyone at home how i can be reached. if any emergencies arise, my wife will just have to handle it-she is an adult too. the last thing i would do is hop on a plane and fly home. probably a selfish attitude but when i get on that outbound flight, i am incommunicado come hell or high water! luckily the kids are grown and gone.

quote:

Originally posted by DC Roxby
We are leaving our two kids, 5 & 7 behind for three weeks. Promised them I would call a few times. May just have to call collect and pay a fortune, or rent a satellite phone I guess

OK, since you'll be leaving your young kids behind and you'll naturally be worried about them here's a suggestion that worked for me. I talked to my wife and kids everyday while I was gone away to Africa and did it without using a cellphone or running up a noticeable phone bill.

Have the phone calls originate from your home or wherever your kids are at. Receiving a call will not cost you, even at hotels. The cost will be the long distance from the USA to Africa and that is not as much as if you are calling from Africa to the States. Even now that I'm back home I still call Africa about once a week and I don't even notice any big difference in my phone bill.

Write down your itinerary and daily schedule of where you will be in Africa and at what time, and the phone numbers of the places you will be at during those times. My wife will call me so that I will receive calls between 7 to 9 PM Namibia time, which is 10 AM to noon back home.

Another thing that I do is give my wife back home the phone number of the US Embassy in the country I'll be in so if she does not hear from me after a while then she can have the embassy try to locate me.

Hope that helps.

Namibiahunter

IF you have Tri-Band Cellular Telephone. GSM 900, 1800 & 1900 (there is a fourth Band in Canada, too) although many do not because most of the Cell Phones provided by North American Discount Providers usually only have the one NA Band on them. The vast majority of the remainder of our Planet uses GSM 1900 Band as do most African countries.

Anyway, if you have a Tri-Band Cell Phone it is VERY easy to pop into a Namibian Provider Store, purchase a local Pre-Paid card (with new Namibian telephone number) and use it while you are there. Obviously you will not have the telphone number until the card is purchased, so you cannot inform those in the States what the # is until you call the first time.

The cards I purchase for RSA; are, in comparison to what we pay in Europe a real bargain and the phone calls originating from RSA were also considerably less expensive than if I use my regular European Provider. As always, if prolonged Long Distance Telephone calls are made daily you'll eat up the card in no time.

Another consideration is that hunting is normally conducted in remote(r) areas and even with the best of local providers & their cards reception may be sporatic. I'd ask your Outfitter if there is good, bad or mediocre reception in the areas you will be living/hunting.

just find the little green guy and tell him ET want to fone home (just couldn't help it)

I was actually wondering more if there are phone cards that can be purchased IN Namibia that have a decent per-minute rate that allow you to call TO the US. I'd just call the wife, tell her my phone number at the hotel or wherever and then have her call me right back using her calling card, which is only about 7 cents per minute to call Namibia.

Otherwise, I'll do what I had originally planned on doing, which was provide her my complete itinerary with phone numbers and approximate times to call me.

My cellular carrier is AT&T. They offer free sign-up for "world traveler" service or whatever they call it. If your phone has the right band for Namibia, all you have to to with the AT& T service is to sign up for the service, dial the right international code and the U.S. phone number, and talk away. I even phoned my wife's cell number and it connected me to her where she was vacationing with girlfriends in Mexico at the time (her trip being another of the unaccounted costs of my hunt).

I also used my cell phone to make a local call to our guide when we needed to be picked up to depart for the airport. There is no need of a local simcard and the per-call costs are reasonable if you keep your conversations appropriately short.

Here's a useful link where you can find roaming partners and coverage maps for Namibia:

http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/cou_na.shtml

Looks like AT&T and T-Mobile will work there.

IMHO, I would forget the phone. One of the things that I think makes these trips special is to really be able to get away and forget about phones, email, newspapers, etc. If there is a problem on one end or the other folks will find a way to communicate. But to each his own.

One of the guys I hunted with already had his company phone set up for international calls. We used it all over the bushveld w/no problems. (Worked better than Verizon at home where I couldn't use it inside by own home.) When I got my new phone AT&T, I made sure it would work internationally. I just have to activate it when I'm ready to go.
I sent daily email and text messages each night from the lodge.
Robert
Robert

I brought my sat phone along and called my kids every other day. Worked like a charm!

quote:

Originally posted by MJines:
IMHO, I would forget the phone. One of the things that I think makes these trips special is to really be able to get away and forget about phones, email, newspapers, etc. If there is a problem on one end or the other folks will find a way to communicate. But to each his own.

I am with you. I can not wait to spend 21 days with no phone, computer, TV and especially no Hillary or Barack news.

the PH we hunt with in Namibia is out of cell phone range, so, I use my iridium sat phone works ok.

I'm thinking that much of N and NE is out of range and you need an Iridium. Not sure about other areas.

We hunt south of Gobabis and it is out of cell phone range

I am curious as well, the other day I saw deal for a "trac Phone" (which I believe is a pay as you go cell phone). The phone was ridiculously inexpensive and they sold international minutes at about the same rates as calling cards. Now my understanding is that this phone purchased stateside would not work in Namibia/RSA due to the SIM card issue, but could one go into a retailer there(Africa)and get such a phone? Cheap phone you don't give a shit about losing or damaging while on safari, yet still giving you the freedom to call home and check on the kids would be the way to go for me. Anyone know about such a thing?

Well, I ended up arranging for a cell-phone rental from a company over there. About $10 per day, minutes are about $3.00 per minute, however you get a few minutes free per day that adds up if you don't use them. The nice thing is that incoming calls are free and don't use up your minutes. I bought my wife a calling card that can be used from here in the states (about 5 cents a minute) to call me on the cell phone over there.

I favor the Iridium and you can rent or purchase a phone and buy block minutes that are good for a year. Use it whenever I am out and about since never know when an emergency will arise and can always get help anywhere in the world.

My wife bought an international cell phone from Mobal Communication, $50 then pays $1.50 per minute. So far it has worked everywhere we have been, including all over Namibia, even found a "cell phone rock" in Vaughan Fulton's camp from which you could get service.

Here is a NYC # for Mobal 212 785 5800.....NO I AM NOT promoting them, just that we have (so far) had good service. They have a toll free UK # but wife says this is the one to call, they overnight phone, you own it for less than your rental cost for Namibia....at least that is the deal we got 3 years ago.

I found this site. Not endorsing them, but the info is pretty good IMO.


http://www.telestial.com/getting_started.php

Sounds like a good business opportunity....I manage cell tower network build outs for all the major carriers....I move all over handling different projects maybe I could get some Namibia work and instead of skipping out of hte office to shoot geese and ducks I could play hookey and chase PG!