Travelling in Africa: It’s not the potholes that get you

We have friends and family planning a trip to visit us in Zambia. Naturally, a WhatsApp group was formed.

What started as excitement about routes and the best sundowner destinations quickly turned into something else entirely: a collective attempt to decode the realities of travelling through Southern Africa.

The practical preparations are straightforward enough. Spare tyre? Check. Recovery kit? Check. Emergency snacks, extra water, and enough charging cables to power a small village? Also check.

What nobody really prepares you for is uncertainty.

One website says you need a police clearance certificate for your vehicle. Another says you don’t. One source says cards are accepted at the border. Another insists it’s cash only. If cash, is it US dollars? Kwacha? Small notes? New notes? Nobody seems entirely sure.

As I watched the WhatsApp group spiral into increasingly frantic research, I realised something: this is exactly why moving to Zambia felt difficult in the beginning.

Not because Zambia is difficult.

Because uncertainty is difficult.

When we first arrived, I kept waiting for things to settle into predictability. Not that problems would disappear, but that systems would become clear. A process. A website. A number to call. A definitive answer.

Instead, very few things here operate with the certainty I was used to.

Need HTH for the pool? That’s an hour-long round trip. Need a spare part? It may exist, but finding it is another matter. Need information? You’ll likely get three different answers from three well-meaning people, all convinced they’re correct.

There’s a slowness to things that still catches me off guard. Tasks that should take minutes stretch into half-days. One issue resolves, another appears. Everything requires adjusting, improvising, figuring it out as you go.

In a world built around convenience, that friction is surprisingly jarring.

We’ve become used to certainty. Accurate information instantly. Systems that work. Problems defined and solved on demand.

Much of modern life is designed to remove doubt.

Here, doubt remains part of the experience.

The frustration isn’t usually the problem itself.

It’s the uncertainty around it.

Back home, a broken phone has a solution. Information has a website. A product has a delivery date. The answer is usually immediate and reliable.

Here, those assumptions don’t always hold. Information is outdated or contradictory. Advice varies depending on who you ask. Card machines work today and not tomorrow. Offices open sometimes, or not.

Individually, none of this is dramatic.

Collectively, it is draining.

The anxiety comes from not knowing what you’ve missed. Whether your documents are correct. Whether the border will ask for something different. Whether the fuel pump will take your card. Whether the carefully researched plan will actually work.

Many polished “first-world solutions” don’t survive first contact here.

E-sims? Often not worth the effort. Buy an Airtel SIM at the airport or a kiosk.

Cashless travel? Bring Kwacha. And US dollars.

Single sources of truth? They don’t really exist. Everything needs cross-checking.

I’ve also come to understand why travel magazines, lodges, and YouTubers rarely dwell on this part.

It isn’t glamorous.

The wildlife, landscapes and sunsets deserve the attention they get.

But nobody is making a video about conflicting border requirements, changing payment systems, or whether the information you’re relying on is still current.

Yet these are often the things occupying travelers long before they arrive.

In many ways, the trip begins not on the road, but in the research.

Endless tabs. Contradictory advice. WhatsApp threads. Forums. The quiet suspicion that there is one crucial detail everyone else knows except you.

And because there is rarely a single definitive answer, you carry the uncertainty with you.

By the time you feel prepared, you’re already tired.

And ironically, the stress is rarely the road itself.

It’s everything you were told about the road before you got there.

So for those planning a road trip from South Africa into Zambia, a few practical tips as of June 2026:

• Yes, you do need a police clearance certificate for your vehicle.

• If you are driving a private vehicle you must display reflective stickers:

  • Front: White reflective stickers.

  • Back: Red reflective stickers.

• You can pay by card at the Kazungula Border Post but always carry Kwacha and US dollars.

• Get an Airtel SIMcard locally. You only need your passport to buy one.