Johannesburg, South Africa

Lately we find that when traveling, especially on international flights, its best to relax. After checking in for our flight, we focus on keeping track of our carry on luggage and navigating through the interminable security checks. But, sometimes we just have to connect. This is more common when dealing with changes in time zones and far away locations like South Africa. When traveling to South Africa, we often arrive via Johannesburg and from there fly or drive to our final destination.

If we overnight in Johannesburg we look for hotels with high speed Internet connectivity. For more than one night, we stay in the city at the The Peech, Saxon, or Ten Bompas hotels. For single nights we stay near the airport.

We recently stayed at the Metcourt Laurel, in the Emperor’s complex and a stone’s throw from the airport with complimentary shuttle service. There was a fee from the third party vendor and connectivity was limited to a couple of spots in the common areas but it was enough to download our emails and reply to urgent issues.

Johannesburg International Airport, O.R. Tambo International Airport as it is now called, offers public and passenger Internet access for a fee (the system accepts major credit cards). Airport Online offers Internet access. There is one branch in International Departures and two in the Domestic Terminal. One of these, which is open to the general public, is near the ATMs in the shopping area. The second, for use by passengers only, is between the main security point and the boarding gates. 

International Departures also offers a wireless option, which allows laptop users with wireless cards to connect to the Internet from anywhere in the departures lounge including most of the restaurants in the terminal. The O.R. Tambo International Airport helpdesk phone number is +27  (0)11 921 6262. The Airport Company of South Africa (ACSA) provides instructions on its website. Click here for details.

With the purchase of a Sansa MP3 player, there was an invitation to join audible.com, online purveyors of audio books. Somewhat skeptical of what they might have to offer, we still joined up and selected a monthly membership which comes with a free credit each month. This credit can be used to select one title for download for free, and the membership also comes with substantial discounts for the purchase of audio books.

After selecting a title from the site, the Audible Manager software downloaded it and loaded it into my MP3 player. The handy thing with the Audible Manager software was that it not only loaded the book, but showed a nice summary of the length of the title, and where the current bookmark was set in the player. It makes it very easy to manage the space on the player and see how far through the title has been already played.

It seems that the quality of the recordings has improved from those we remember from years past on audio cassettes. The narrators are getting quite good at varying voice and tone which adds color and interest to the story.

Sometimes when traveling abroad, it can be quite difficult to obtain a new book in countries where the language is not english. The selection may be limited, or in more remote areas nonexistant. The great thing with audible is that you can select a title and download it from anywhere and get access to the latest hot titles. Of course, the selection is not the same as going to Amazon and looking for titles in print, but it seems to be getting better all the time.

If you already have a player, then you can try Audible.com for free, download their software and get started. If not, check out our previous article on the Sansa MP3 player, which is our current favorite for listening to audio books.

When traveling abroad, there are many great experiences and cultures to explore. Part of the magic of working from another country is being able to enjoy the daily lifestyle of a new place. Even the little things stand out, the faucets in Japan turn the opposite direction of those in the U.S., sandwiches in Denmark are open faced, and in Germany, most people seem to drink fruit juice or water with their lunch.

Television and entertainment in other countries can be a particular challenge unless you are fluent in the local language. It is not difficult to learn the words necessary to conduct minor business, such as shopping or going to a movie, but listening to the news requires a grasp of the local language. Many countries provide very little English language programming, even in top hotels.

Online newspapers have been slowly emerging on the web as a supplement to the daily print edition. One that we have found to be outstanding is the Washington Post online. The news coverage is thorough and you can even get your daily fix of the funny pages! The registration is free, and they will even email you the top stories of the day, which can be directed to your cell phone for extra convenience.

JConnect offers a free phone number at an area code of their choice in the U.S. This service is called JConnect Free. For a monthly fee (about $15) you can sign up for a phone number in a specific area code and access their premium features. This service is called JConnect Premier. Although there may be other companies offering similar services, this is the only one I’ve tried. Once you have your JConnect phone number you can listen to voicemail messages by email.  JConnect emails you the voicemail message and you can play it on your computer. This is a practical feature if you’re traveling because it eliminates the need to call for your voicemail message.

Sometimes I have limited or infrequent access to my computer or to the Internet. When that happens it’s more convenient and faster to receive the voicemail messages on my mobile phone. JConnect makes that possible quickly and easily; and as a JConnect Premier member I pay no additional fees to forward my voicemail messages. My mobile phone company charges me for text messages when I’m roaming but the cost is usually very inexpensive.

If you travel a lot you may be able to take advantage of this service. First find out if your mobile phone is enabled for MMS (a multimedia message service that allows pictures and sound) and if the service is available where you are. If so you will likely be able to receive WAV files. If MMS service is unavaialble or your mobile phone is not enabled, forwarding voicemails to the mobile phone won’t work because your phone won’t be able to play the audio recording of the voicemail.

If your phone is enabled for MMS files and the mobile phone company offers MMS service you’re half way there. To receive your forwarded voicemails on your mobile phone, configure your JConnect account to submit your voicemails in WAV format.  Then forward the voicemails to your mobile phone text message email account. The email address should be the one that you use to forward text messages to your mobile phone. Once the voicemail messages arrive you can read your text message and it automatically plays the attached WAV file with your voicemail message. I just tried this in the U.S. and U.K. and it worked like a charm!

There are three major cell phone technologies in use in the United States. Verizon and Sprint use CDMA technology, Nextel uses iDen technology, and Cingular and T-Mobile use GSM. If you stay within the U.S. exclusively and do not anticipate using your phone outside the country, the CDMA carriers will give you better coverage and stronger signals. So if you rarely leave the U.S. coverage area, choosing one of the CDMA providers probably makes sense.

With the exception of some parts of Asia, the rest of the world uses GSM exclusively. Thus it makes sense to consider one of the GSM carriers in the U.S. Signal reception seems to work pretty well in most markets and the phone can be used in a huge internationl footprint.

One of the unique aspects of the GSM phone is the removable chip or SIM that contains information specific to the provider, such as phone number and settings. Although discouraged by most U.S. carriers by “locking” the phone to refuse to accept other SIMs, it is quite easy to obtain codes to “unlock” most of these phones.

The advantage to this design is the ability to obtain prepaid cellular service within the country where you are visiting. Especially if you will interacting a lot with the locals, having a local cell phone number makes you easy to communicate with, while roaming with your U.S. number makes it expensive for both parties. This is because the model in Europe and other parts of the world is to charge the caller for the entire cost of the call and make it free for the one recieving. But if you are traveling with a U.S. GSM phone, you will pay for the minutes at an elevated rate.

Even when it is not advantageous to obtain prepaid service on a seperate chip, it is nice to be able to use your phone for a quick check of voice mail, or to contact home. While in the Grenadines last spring, we were able to keep in touch with our businesses even from the sailboat as we came in close to islands.