Working Remotely While Travelling Across Africa: What to Plan

Working remotely while travelling across Africa works best when you base yourself in cities, carry a backup connection and plan meetings around the time zone you are in. Internet access varies a great deal between and within countries, so the planning happens before you book a room, not after. This guide covers the practical side only. It does not cover visas, work permits or tax; check those with each country’s official government sources before you travel.

How good is internet access across Africa?

Access is improving but still well below the world average, and it is much better in towns than in the countryside. The International Telecommunication Union’s Facts and Figures 2025 puts average Internet use in Africa at 36 per cent of the population, against 74 per cent worldwide.

The gap between town and country is wider in Africa than in any other region the ITU reports on. Its urban and rural breakdown gives Africa an urban-to-rural ratio of 2.6 for Internet use. For remote workers this means a simple rule: do your calls from cities and larger towns, and treat a lodge in a national park as a place to read, not to work.

How much speed do video calls need?

A steady connection of a few megabits per second covers most video calls. Zoom’s own system requirements page lists these recommended figures:

Check the upload speed as well as the download speed, since Zoom’s figures apply in both directions. Before you book a long stay, ask the host to run a speed test and send you a screenshot. If a call gets choppy, turning off your camera drops you to audio, which needs a small fraction of the bandwidth.

Should you get a local SIM card?

Yes. A local SIM with a data bundle is the easiest backup when the Wi-Fi fails, but you will need your passport to register it. In Kenya, for example, the SIM-card registration regulations published by the Communications Authority require a foreign national to show an original and valid passport or an original alien card.

Other countries set their own registration rules, so carry your passport when you go to buy a SIM and use an official shop of the mobile network. If your phone supports two SIMs, keeping lines from two different networks gives you a second route when one network is weak in a particular area.

A simple connectivity kit

• A phone that can share its data connection as a hotspot
• A local SIM with a data bundle, plus your home SIM for bank codes
• A power bank that can charge both phone and, if possible, laptop
• Offline copies of the documents you need for the week
• A short cable and a universal plug adapter

How do you plan around power cuts?

Check the local schedule where one is published, and keep your devices charged whenever power is available. In South Africa, Eskom runs a load-shedding page where you can look up schedules by province and area. When checked in October 2026, the page said: “We are currently not Load Shedding”.

Elsewhere, ask your host how often the power goes off and whether the building has a generator or battery backup. Charge everything overnight, and plan calls for times when you know the power is likely to be on.

Where can you find co-working spaces?

A co-working space with a day pass gives you reliable desks and Wi-Fi without a long contract. Two examples with published prices:

• iHub in Nairobi lists a day pass at KES 2,000 per day excluding VAT, with access between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. It says the day pass is also available in Nigeria and Namibia.
• Workshop17 has spaces in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Ballito in South Africa, and in Mauritius. Its “On the Road” membership gives 60 hours a month of hot-desking for R2,280 a month excluding VAT.

Prices were taken from each operator’s website in October 2026 and change often, so check the official site before you book. A day pass is also a cheap way to test the Wi-Fi and the chairs before you commit to a month.

How do you manage time zones across Africa?

Africa spans six time zones, from one hour behind UTC in Cape Verde to four hours ahead in Mauritius. The table below is based on Wikipedia’s Time in Africa entry, checked in October 2026.

Most of the continent does not change its clocks during the year. The same entry says Egypt is currently the only country observing daylight saving time, from the last Friday of April to the last Thursday of October. Time rules do change, so confirm with an official source in the country if a deadline depends on it.

Habits that make time zones easier

• Write meeting times in UTC as well as local time in every calendar invite
• Add a second clock to your laptop for your team’s home time
• Block your best working hours first, then offer meeting slots around them
• Update your calendar’s time zone each time you cross a border

Moving between East and West Africa can shift your working day by two or three hours. Lagos is on UTC+1 and Nairobi on UTC+3, so a 9 a.m. meeting in Lagos starts at 11 a.m. in Nairobi.

Sources

1. ITU Facts and Figures 2025: Internet use (15 October 2025)
2. ITU Facts and Figures 2025: Internet use in urban and rural areas
3. Zoom Support: Zoom system requirements: Windows, macOS, Linux
4. Communications Authority of Kenya: Kenya Information and Communications (Registration of SIM-Cards) Regulations, 2015
5. Eskom: Load Shedding
6. iHub: Coworking section
7. Workshop17: locations and memberships
8. Wikipedia: Time in Africa