Electronics in South Africa 2017
Electronics and Electricity in South Africa
You may wish to bring a laptop, tablet or notebook with you on the trip. These are useful for the internet when it is available and also to dump images from your camera to a hard drive or thumb drive. The smaller the better is the watchword here because you have to lug your electronicsaround with you everywhere including on the airplanes. Make sure you bring the charger and a power adaptor. Keep your machines in a padded container in your carry on.
A Kindle or similar reader device loaded with books comes in handy on the long transatlantic flights or on the road in Africa. If you bring your Kindle then be sure to bring the charger as well. I plan to bring a Kindle with me this year but in the past I brought along cheap paperbacks for reading and left them behind in Africa. This gives me more room for souvenirs on the return trip.
Keep your electronics with you when you go through security and carry them through yourself. Don’t leave them in your checked luggage.
For border-crossing purposes it is a good idea to prepare and keep with you a list of the electronic devices that you bring with you on the trip, with make, model and serial number. This includes your camera items.
Swaziland and South Africa use a different way to distribute electricity compared to North America. You will need to take this into account as you plan for the trip.For your rechargeable batteries and all your devices, electric current in South Africa is 220V not 110V as we use in the USA. You must have an adapter or converter, configured to fit into South African/Swazi sockets, to charge your batteries or run your gadgets using South African 220V current.
The converter (more expensive but safer) does just that: it converts Africa electricity to the US version so your devices think they are still at home. The adaptor (cheaper but slightly more liable to cause damage) just fits into the wall socket and lets your devices plug right in. It works because almost all US electronics are dual voltage and will operate properly on South African electricity as long as you have the adaptor that allows you to plug them in.
I use adaptors for my Africa travels and have had no problems so far (knock on wood).
I recommend that you purchase an adaptor or converter that has multiple ports so that you can charge more than one thing at a time. Examples of adaptors can be viewed at:
Amazon also has many options, for example, at the following url:
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We may be one day/night without any electricity (Hlane in Swaziland) so you’ll need to plan to charge up everything on the day before.
See the EXPORT CONTROL section for more information.
Phone in South Africa
Today there are so many phone carriers with so many plan options that there is no way to sort through all the possible optionsand permutations in a message to travelers. You should check with your own phone carrier to find out if they offer a plan that works for you. Shop around for the best deal that you can find. Make sure that you purchase an option that covers all your phone and data for the full trip (i.e. not just the month of May). In 2015 I got stuck for about $300 in extra charges because I accidentally exceeded my plan by a single day.
Once we have all acquired phone service in Africa we will be able to text, email and call to stay in touch. Our guides and drivers will always be in communication with each other.
Internet in South Africa
You should expect slow internet service in Africa. It will be available in most places but it is not likely to be excellent service because we will be away from population centers for most of our trip. It might be difficult for you to connect and log on via your own devices. Internet cafes or shared hotel computers may be more reliable options. Our guides/drivers may have mobile boosters that you can use.
Photography in South Africa
You will want to take a lot of photographs while you are in South Africa. You can use them to show off your adventures to family and friends and you will always have them to remember your trip. On a more professional level, your photographs will provide a permanent record for your trip and will be able to use them for class assignments, seminars or Power Point presentations on South African wildlife.
While you can still do old-fashioned film photography you are much better off with digital. It is cheaper, more versatile and adds a video option to still photo shooting.
You can go high end with a DSLR camera body and interchangeable lenses but all that equipment probably is not necessary unless you already own it, like it and are used to it. In general, one of the smaller, more point-and-shoot type cameras will work out as well for you. An example of such a type of camera would be the Nikon Coolpix series. Smaller cameras work well because they are easier to carry around and easier to handle inside a vehicle and easier to keep steady for a sharp photo. Whatever you choose, make sure you have good zoom or magnification power because many subjects will be at extreme range especially raptors.
You will need more memory for your camera than you think you will. The exact amount of memory that you need will depend on what format you are using to store files, on your camera and on how many shots you want to take but you will need to plan for more than plenty of camera memory, especially if you are going to shoot video. Bring along several high-capacity, high-speed memory cards, the faster the better. It is better to have them just in case than to need them but not have them. Another option is to dump your photo files to a tablet, notebook or laptop if you bring one along and that can clear space on those photo cards.
You will need good batteries for your camera. Usually the best way to handle this is to bring along at least one spare and a charger so you can keep them all powered up. This depends on your photography style and the amount of video that you shoot. You may need several batteries
If you forget something for your camera there is a chance that you can purchase it in South Africa but no guarantee. In any case, it is liable to be expensiveover there so try to bring everything you need with you.
Photo etiquette is important! South African people are used to tourists but you should always ask permission before photographing a person. Animals, on the other hand, do not much mind having their picture taken and so you can snap away at them all you like.
Export Control
IUP will require you to complete paperwork related to something called Export Control. This is a statewide regulation and so we all have to comply. On this paperwork you will have to swear that you are not exporting certain types of technology to hand over to terrorist organizations while on your trip out of the country. Export Control is more of an issue for IUP employees taking university equipment with them on foreign trips because the University wants to make sure that it does not get into any trouble with the electronic equipment that it actually owns. Export Control is usually not a big issue for student travelers with privately-owned, consumer-grade equipment.
For consumer-grade electronics that are personally-owned, the Export Control requirement is almost 100% formality and you should really not worry much about it. If you have questions about security clearance for any of the electronics in any of your devices then I have found that the best approaches are to: (1) contact the manufacturer’s help line and ask if export control is an issue with your device or (2) go to an online chat room with the same question and see what you find.
The problem of course is that if something goes badly wrong, the government could possibly come back on you with threats of fines, etc. This is very, very, very unlikely but if you want to make sure that it is not going to be a problem for you then fill out the Export Control paperwork. Everyone must do this: IUP students, non-IUP students and non-students as well, including me.
This paperwork involves a two-step process. In the first step, you fill out an International Travel Questionnaire and, depending on your answers, you may or may not have to go on to Step Two.
Instructions for IUP Export Control paperwork are located at this url:
From this page you can access the Step One International Travel Questionnaire. I will also try to link a copy of this Questionnaire to the course web site. You must fill out and sign the Questionnaire.
When you have done that, either bring the signed paper to me or send it to me as a pdf attachment. I will then sign as the “Manager” and submit it to the appropriate IUP Office.
The contact person for Export Control at IUP is Ms. Kathy Cindric at .
You may be asked to provide a list of the electronic items you plan to take and whether you own them yourself or they belong to IUP.