Visa rules change without much notice — Namibia's own rules flipped in April 2025 — always spot-check directly before booking, not just against this page.

This page contains affiliate links, and I may earn a small commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you.

The document checklist

• Yellow fever certificate — required for Uganda entry for all travelers over age one. This is the one that catches people out most, since it's a physical/digital certificate you need in advance, not something you can arrange at the border.
• E-visas for every country on the route, printed or saved offline — not every border crossing has reliable wifi to pull up a confirmation email on the spot.
• KAZA Univisa (if Victoria Falls is part of the route) — apply online in advance or on arrival at specific entry points (Kenneth Kaunda International Airport, Harry Mwanga Nkumbula International Airport, Victoria Falls border, or Kazungula border); confirm your nationality is on the eligible list before assuming it applies.
• Proof of Zanzibar's mandatory insurance, if that's part of the route, or budget for it being charged on arrival instead.
• Passport with enough blank pages and at least 6 months' validity past your last stop on the whole route — a common problem specifically on multi-country trips, since each border crossing uses another page.

Worth carrying on a multi-country trip specifically

• RFID-blocking passport/document organizer — worth it once you're carrying multiple e-visa printouts, a yellow fever certificate, and more than one country's entry paperwork at once, not just a single passport.
• Portable power bank — long border-crossing travel days plus offline e-visas and boarding passes make phone battery a real constraint in a way a single-destination trip doesn't.

Staying connected across borders: one plan won't do it

eSIM plans are sold per country, so a multi-country route needs a plan per country. This is the part people get wrong — buying one eSIM and assuming it follows them across the border.

Regional plans exist and look like the answer. They aren't. Saily's Africa plan spans 35 countries and costs roughly two to four times what stacking single-country plans costs — and it excludes both Namibia and Zimbabwe, which are precisely the two countries a Southern Africa circuit is most likely to include.

Namibia + Botswana self-drive: two separate plans. Namibia is the expensive one (about €39 for 5 GB / 30 days against Botswana's €23), and both are towns-and-main-roads propositions rather than reserve coverage.

Saily Namibia · Saily Botswana

Uganda + Kilimanjaro + Zanzibar: a Uganda plan and a Tanzania plan. On Zanzibar, Saily's support told us the Tanzania plan covers it — their exact position was that Zanzibar isn't on their list of known coverage limitations, so treat it as expected to work rather than formally guaranteed.

Saily Uganda · Saily Tanzania

Victoria Falls: the one place where no eSIM will commit

This is the connectivity trap on the whole circuit, and it splits by riverbank.