Tanzania Travel Tips
Requirements
A valid passport is mandatory, and it shouldn’t expire within six months of your intended date of departure from Tanzania.
Internet cafés are prolific in larger towns such as Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar, Arusha, Mwanza and Moshi, and browsing is faster and more affordable than in most African countries, though it may seem rather ponderous to Europeans used to ultra-fast broadband.
Internet access is not usually available in game reserves and national parks, and the few lodges that do offer browsing facilities or email services tend to charge very high rates. It will simplify matters greatly to warn people at home that you’ll be out of internet range whilst on safari.
International phone calls can be made at any TCC Extelcomms centre or upmarket hotel.
The satellite network for mobile phones is excellent in and around towns, but patchier in national parks and game reserves.
An alternative to paying the expensive international rates that apply to calls made from Tanzania on a non-Tanzanian mobile phone would be to buy a local SIM card and use the local pay-as-you-go service, which is very cheap for local and international calls and text messages.
Tanzanian numbers starting with 07 are mobile, while all other numbers are land lines. In both cases, the leading zero must be dropped and an international code of +255 added if you are dialling from outside of Tanzania (e.g. 0741 555555 becomes 00255 741 555555 dialled from the UK or other EU-countries).
Three zeros must be prefixed to any international number dialled from within Tanzania.
Etiquette
Formal greetings are taken seriously; even if you speak no Swahili it is polite to greet somebody with a smiling ‘jambo’ or ‘habari’ before you enter into conversation.
Crime