How to Stay Connected on a Wildlife Photography Trip
Guest post
There’s something wonderfully appealing about disappearing into the bush with nothing more complicated to worry about than whether the leopard is going to come down from the tree before the light goes. Unfortunately, modern travel rarely works like that. Even on safari, your phone has a habit of becoming almost as useful as your camera. You may need it to confirm a transfer, find your driver at the airport, call a lodge, check an ETA, speak to someone back home or work out why your luggage has gone to Nairobi while you’ve gone to Maun.
I’ve spent enough time travelling with camera equipment to know that communications are one of those things nobody thinks much about until they stop working. When everything goes according to plan, you barely notice your phone. When something goes wrong, suddenly the ability to make one ordinary call becomes rather important.
So, if you’re heading overseas for a safari or photography trip, it’s worth sorting out how you’ll stay connected before you leave.
Don’t Assume Your Normal Mobile Plan Will Behave Abroad
Roaming has certainly become easier, but that doesn’t mean it has become universally cheap.
What happens when you land depends on your mobile provider, your contract and the country you’re visiting. Some plans include roaming in selected destinations. Others charge a daily fee. A few can still produce the sort of bill that makes buying another telephoto lens seem financially responsible.
Before travelling, check exactly what your provider charges for calls, texts and mobile data in each country on your itinerary. This becomes particularly important on multi-country trips. A safari involving Kenya and Tanzania, for example, may involve different roaming rules even though you cross the border in the same vehicle.
Do not rely on vaguely remembering what happened on your last trip. Mobile plans get altered, roaming agreements get revised and the wonderfully cheap deal you had two years ago may no longer exist.
I’d rather spend five minutes checking than discover the answer after making a 40-minute call from the middle of nowhere.
Data and Phone Calls Aren’t Quite the Same Thing
Much of modern travel can be handled through mobile data. WhatsApp covers messages and calls, Google Maps helps with navigation and email deals with most booking queries.
That can make it tempting to think you don’t need conventional calls at all.
Usually, you won’t. But “usually” has a nasty habit of disappearing when your plans go wrong.
Hotels, airlines, tour operators and transfer companies still use telephone numbers. You may be given a local number to call when you arrive. A camp may need to contact you about a flight time. Your bank might decide that buying something in Botswana is suspicious and ask you to ring them.
And if you’re travelling with elderly relatives back home, you may find that telling them to download yet another messaging app produces approximately the same reaction as asking a lion to pose nicely at sunset.
It’s sensible to have both mobile data and some way of making a normal call.
An eSIM Can Make Data Much Easier
For many travellers, an eSIM is now the simplest solution for mobile internet.
Rather than buying a physical SIM at the airport and trying to find the tiny metal pin you packed somewhere extremely sensible, you can install a travel eSIM before departure and activate it after landing.
The advantage for photographers is obvious. Data gives you access to maps, messages, weather forecasts, flight information and cloud services without depending on hotel Wi-Fi.
I wouldn’t necessarily upload several thousand RAW files over mobile data unless you’ve bought an enormous allowance, but being able to send a few JPEGs, check tomorrow’s pickup time or look at a weather forecast is extremely useful.
There is one catch: many travel eSIM packages are primarily data products. They may not include an ordinary local telephone number or standard voice calling.
That’s fine as long as you know beforehand.
Keep an Eye on the Cost of Actual Calls
If you know you’ll need to make ordinary international calls, check the price before travelling rather than assuming an app or roaming plan will cover everything. This is particularly relevant when calling landlines, businesses or people who don’t use the same messaging service as you. Services like SayFone publish their international call rates so travellers can check what a call to a particular country will cost before making it. It’s not something you necessarily need every day, but having a low-cost calling option available can be handy when you’re abroad and suddenly need to ring an airline, lodge, bank or family member without using your mobile provider’s roaming tariff.
That’s really all the preparation you need on that front. You don’t want to spend your safari thinking about telephone rates. The whole point of sorting it out beforehand is that you can forget about it afterwards.
Download the Important Things Before You Leave
Mobile data is useful, but I never like being entirely dependent on it.
Download your boarding passes. Save your accommodation details. Keep screenshots of transfer instructions. Download offline maps if you’re going somewhere unfamiliar. Store copies of travel documents securely on your phone and somewhere else.
If I’m travelling to a wildlife destination, I also like having the lodge contact details available offline. A phone number written inside an email is no use if the email refuses to load.
Official tourism sites are useful during planning because they can help you check destinations, parks and practical travel information from a primary source. For Botswana, the Botswana Tourism Organisation is particularly useful if you’re putting together a route involving places such as Chobe or the Okavango Delta. For Kenya, the government’s National Tourism Service Portal includes practical trip-planning information alongside tourism and travel resources.
Once I’ve found the information I need, I save the important bits locally.
It may seem slightly old-fashioned, but old-fashioned works rather well when the signal disappears.
Lodge Wi-Fi Can Be Excellent, Terrible or Theoretical
Safari lodges have improved enormously when it comes to internet access. I’ve stayed in remote camps where the Wi-Fi was surprisingly fast.
I’ve also stayed in places where “Wi-Fi available” appeared to mean there was technically a router somewhere on the property and perhaps, under favourable atmospheric conditions, a single byte might eventually make it through.
If you need connectivity for work, don’t assume lodge Wi-Fi will be enough. Ask beforehand where it works and whether there are limits.
Some camps intentionally keep Wi-Fi out of guest rooms or common areas because people are there to watch elephants rather than conference calls. Personally, I have a certain amount of sympathy with that.
But photographers may still need internet access. You might be delivering pictures to a client, sending proofs, communicating with someone at home or checking logistics for the next part of the trip.
A mobile connection gives you a useful backup.
Battery Power Matters Just as Much as Signal
Connectivity becomes irrelevant if your phone is dead.
Photography trips can be surprisingly hostile to batteries. You may leave camp before sunrise, stay out for hours and return only after an afternoon drive. Cold weather reduces battery performance, and constantly searching for a weak mobile signal can drain a phone faster than expected.
Carry a power bank.
I already travel with more batteries than any normal human being should own because cameras are hungry creatures. Adding a decent power bank to the kit is hardly a major burden.
Keep charging cables in your hand luggage rather than your checked suitcase. That way, if an airline decides your luggage deserves its own holiday, you can at least charge your phone while you wait for it.
Keep Your Phone Secure
Travelling with expensive camera equipment already makes security worth thinking about. A smartphone adds another device containing personal data, banking apps, email, travel documents and probably access to half your online existence.
Use a proper passcode. Turn on device tracking. Avoid leaving your phone lying around in airports, restaurants or safari vehicles.
Public Wi-Fi deserves some caution too. You don’t need to panic every time you connect to hotel internet, but I’d avoid doing anything unusually sensitive over an unknown open network when mobile data is available instead.
It’s also sensible to have another way to access important information if your phone disappears. Keep copies of crucial travel details somewhere else rather than building your entire trip around one small rectangle of glass.
Tell People When You’ll Be Unreachable
One of the nicest things about wildlife photography is that there are still places where you genuinely cannot be contacted.
Enjoy them!
If you’re going somewhere with poor reception, tell the people who might worry about you. Give family members the lodge details if necessary. Let clients know when you’re unavailable. Ask the camp how emergency communications work.
Once that’s done, put the phone away.
There is little point travelling halfway around the planet to photograph elephants, lions or leopards if you spend the whole sighting staring at notifications.
Some of my favourite photographic moments have happened precisely because there was nothing else competing for my attention.
The Best Technology Is the Stuff You Forget About
Travel technology should disappear into the background.
Set up your roaming or eSIM before departure. Know how you’ll make an ordinary phone call if necessary. Save important details offline. Carry a power bank and make sure somebody knows where you’re going.
Then stop thinking about it.
When everything works, you should be able to spend the morning worrying about shutter speeds, light and whether that cheetah is finally going to do something interesting.
And if the cheetah decides to sleep for six hours instead?
Well, at least you’ll have enough signal to complain about it.
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