How to Stay Connected When Leaving it All Behind

Besides whacking on big fish, a big part of the rationale for taking a fishing trip to a remote location is to truly “get away from it all.” It’s nice to be able to leave behind the demands, obligations and stresses of everyday life. When Hanna and I went to Africa in 2016, we met a family from France who’d been going on safari for several decades, and they preferred the more rustic Old Mondoro Camp to the affiliated Chiawa Camp precisely because it was more rustic. In fact, the family’s matriarch rued the introduction of wi-fi (pronounced, in her quaint accent, as “wee-fee”) to the safari experience.

Nevertheless, there are times when you’ll need to stay connected, either by telephone or by email, for work, family or other reasons. Sometimes, that’s unpredictable—you schedule a trip planning to be off the grid, and then an emergency or semi-emergency arises. In other cases, you might have business or family obligations that require you to be available all or part of the day, but you still want to go fishing. Here are __ considerations and tips to take into account if you simply cannot leave it all behind.

Never Assume Connectivity

If you’re dealing with a true medical emergency, or you’re required to maintain access to the nuclear codes, here’s my advice: Cancel or postpone the trip. There are simply no guarantees of remaining consistently connected. That’s particularly true in Third World countries, but it happens in the United States, too. I’ve stayed at numerous stateside cabins and lodges where the cell signal and internet service was spotty at best.

Buy an International Plan

If you’re going to be abroad, and plan to use your cell phone, check with your service provider about international plans. Check first to see what your existing plan includes—you might already be covered. If not, check into the various options that are available to you. You might only be charged for the days that it’s actually used, or you can buy a blanket coverage providing a certain amount of date, minutes and texts, depending on your needs. Just make sure that the country or countries that you are visiting are included.

Purchase a SIM Card In-Country

Another way to ensure coverage in a foreign country is to purchase a local SIM card, which will give you a local phone number and a temporary plan. Before going down this path, make sure that your phone is unlocked and allows you to swap out the cards. If not, you may end up not having service, and perhaps worse you could end up ruining your phone or voiding any sort of warranty. If you’ll need phone service for Uber or to make restaurant reservations, this may be your best option. You may be able to buy a SIM card in advance, but the best deals may be at your destination airport—assuming you’ll arrive at an hour when they’re expected to be open. Confirm all of this at home from the comfort of your desk chair. One other thing—once you have the foreign SIM card write down the number, including any prefixes or area codes, or you’re likely to get it.

Download WhatsApp

Americans are slowly coming around to it, but people in other parts of the world have been using WhatsApp for a while—this free voice-over-IP (VOIP) tool became the world’s most popular messaging application six years ago. As long as you have internet service, you can use WhatsApp to make phone calls and send messages, which may mean that you won’t need an international cell plan to use your phone for calling when on vacation.

Consider a Satellite Phone

If you’ll be in the depths of the Amazon or on a mothership in the South Pacific, and you absolutely need to have telephone service, a satellite phone is likely a better option than a cell phone, even with WhatsApp installed on your cell. As the name suggests, a “sat phone” connects to the network through satellites in the sky rather than through land-based towers, potentially giving them a wider range. They’re not inexpensive, but you may be able to rent one by the week and use it on an as-needed basis. This may be not only a matter of convenience, but also of safety—if you’re being dropped off by a float plane in an area that has no service whatsoever, a satellite phone could be your lifeline in case of emergency. [Note: There was a rumor that the IPhone 13 would have satellite capabilities. Alas, it turned out not to be satellite-capable but we can hold out hope for such an advance in consumer smartphones in the not-too-distant future.]

Getting the Best Internet Service

While internet access at remote camps and lodges is continually getting better, you have to expect that at best it’ll fall far short of the high-speed service that you get at home. At worst, it may fade in and out during the course of the day or the course of a trip, or may fail altogether. Assuming it is good-but-not-great, there are strategies to getting the most out of it. First, use it at off times. If all 20 or 30 people at the lodge are trying to suck on that bandwidth at the same time, it’s likely to struggle, so get up a few minutes before the “official” wake up call, or head out on the water a few minutes later than everyone else to get some time online to yourself. Also, get as close to the router as you can. If you’ll need access in your room, and it’s available from a router elsewhere on the property, see if they’ll place you in the room closest to where it sits. Finally, don’t expect to be able to watch videos or send massive files from a remote location. It may be possible, but if you’re depending on that possibility it might be better to stay home or go on a trip closer to a population center.

Keep it Dry

As phones have become increasingly used as cameras, alarm clocks, mapping devices and information centers, that has reduced the amount of gear we need to carry (a huge bonus on trips where your luggage is limited by weight), but it also means we tend to expose them to the elements. Trust me, as someone who has ruined phones by jumping into a pool in Maui, falling into the Pocomoke River, and wading in the Nanticoke River, I know the sinking feeling of ruining your most important device. Always be mindful of what you’re doing with that phone, because you likely won’t be able to immediately replace it when abroad or even in remote U.S. locations. At the very least, don’t hold it over the side of the boat, and keep it in some sort of a waterproof covering, even if it’s just a plastic bag.  Yes, I know that there are phones that are advertised to be waterproof or water-resistant, but I wouldn’t count on it.

Don’t Fry Your Phone

It’s also critical to charge your phone properly. Make sure that you have the proper cables to run power to it. In some of the most remote places we’ve been, electricity is only available via generator for several hours a day, so suck up all of the juice that you can, when you can. Additionally, be sure that you have the proper wall adapter for the local power needs—usually available from the Amazon or in the destination airport. Otherwise, you may end up frying your device. Remember to bring extra charging cords. You can even bring one in the boat (with a cigarette lighter adapter if needed) to ensure that you have the ability to capture pictures of your trophy catch.

Consider Your Device Options

Hanna and I prefer to bring both our phones and a single laptop (as well as our Kindles) on trips if possible, but if luggage weight is a concern, or you’re going to be in remote and difficult terrain, the laptop may prove to be a hindrance rather than a benefit. A tablet might split the difference and handle multiple tasks more efficiently that two distinct devices. In most cases, I’d rather have my phone, as the cameras and other apps are becoming increasingly refined and sophisticated.

Backup Plans

Finally, while the world is becoming increasingly interconnected, and even remote indigenous villages almost all seem to have smart phones, you have to assume that none of your devices will work in the most remote locations: Hope for the best but plan for the worst. They may advertise wi-fi, but what if the router gets wiped out by a monsoon and they haven’t had a chance to replace it? Or the service was never there to begin with? If you absolutely have to be reachable in case of an emergency, give the operation’s main business number to your family and business colleagues. That might prove to be a travel agent in a gateway city, your booking agent, or in the cases of smaller operators the spouse of your guide or captain, but it’s a human contact who will know the best way to get a message to you ASAP.