Planning your trip to Sao Tome? You must be an adventurer because there are not many people traveling to this unknown country in Central Africa. But you going to have a great time, I loved it. Staying connected in Sao Tome is challenging, until recently there was not even 4G, but as of 2024 there is now finally also 4G in Sao Tome & Principe.

Buying a local prepaid sim card is the best way to stay connected and it is fairly easy when arriving in Sao Tome. This is your complete guide for buying a sim card for traveling in Sao Tome & Principe. Find out where to buy a sim card, up to date prices as per June 2024, the best network coverage, my experience and recommendation and everything else you need to know.

It took me over 40 hours to travel to Banjul, all the way from Pakistan, but I made it to West Africa. It was late November 2019 and I arrived in country no. 103 on my journey to visit every country in the world. The Gambia was my first country in West Africa and only my 4th country in the whole African continent at that time after Seychelles, Namibia and South Africa.

After traveling continuously for 7 years by 2019, it was about damn time I finally started exploring Africa. It never really was high on my bucketlist. Luckily things have changed.

It was my last country in West Africa on this trip and one of my first trips which was actually planned well ahead in a long time. There was a specific reason I had to fly to Sal Island in Cabo Verde on December 6th 2019 as one of my best travel friends was about to finish visiting every country in the world. Yep exactly 197 at Cape Verde, the island just off the coast from Senegal.

Never been to Iceland? Nope! I got this question a lot over the years. Why not? Well, pretty expensive, not easy to travel on a budget and being a remote island it hasn’t been easy to combine it with one of my big trips. Plus in most months it is way too cold and I would need specific clothes to visit Iceland.

The stamp in my passport says that I traveled to Uganda on the 11th of May 2021. I just came from Tanzania were they actually lost my PCR test. Well, it didn’t surprise me and within a couple hours they fixed me a negative test result. However the put in the wrong dates, as if I did my test on May 11th as well. Of course this was trouble when arriving at the Mutukula border post in Uganda.

Let’s say it just took a little more time than usual but they put a stamp in my passport with a smile: welcome to Uganda!

Sitting here on a rooftop in Nairobi I realize it was exactly 1 month ago that I arrived in Kenya. Basically waiting here for my Djibouti visa to be confirmed and to hop on my flight to country number 113. But first my story about visiting country number 112: Kenya.

It sounds odd but during my 1 month in Kenya I actually didn’t have that many travel adventures. Thinking about what this Kenya travel story was going to be about I came up with rhinos and volunteering, but that was only about 10 days in total. What happened in the other 20 days?

Completely unexpected Djibouti ended up being my last country on my big Africa trip. Because I was refused at the Ethiopian border I had to come up with an alternative and flew from Nairobi, Kenya to Djibouti, my first flight since South Africa. It marked the end of my Africa overland trip! I arrived on Djibouti’s 44th birthday on June 27th, Independence Day in Djibouti.

A step back in time, but a great one! Lesotho travel is still super authentic and life out there in world's highest country is extremely laid back. The scenery is absolutely amazing and the people very friendly and happy to see tourists. Visiting Lesotho was a big surprise.

Little did I know about Lesotho before my visit. I knew that it was mountainous, but I had no clue that the lowest point of the country is at 1,400 m (4,593 ft.). Which makes it by far the highest country on earth, followed by Rwanda with a lowest point of 950 m (3,116 ft).

The title sounds so harsh for this little paradise island but that is the way things worked out for me when visiting Sao Tome. An initial trip of 4 days was extended by a full week because of things out of my control. Another one of those moments were traveling felt so frustrating and asking myself the question why am I doing this...

Reaching my goal of visiting every country in the world was still very far away but when traveling to Cameroon I knew that this was also my chance to visit Sao Tome & Principe. I didn’t plan on visiting this island nation only about 4 days before my trip.