When traveling West Africa overland, I found that Whatsapp was essential for contacting guesthouses down the road. Due to inconsistent electrical supply in the

When traveling West Africa overland, I found that Whatsapp was essential for contacting guesthouses down the road. Due to inconsistent electrical supply in the region, accommodation proprietors don’t have constant mobile phone availability, so trying to contact them on the phone is often fruitless. Instead, they all ask to be contacted over Whatsapp, so that when they get a chance to charge their devices they can catch up on whatever messages have been sent to them in the meantime. Also, I found in South America that almost no one would respond to an SMS sent to them. Apparently, SMSs used to be extremely expensive, so a culture developed of never answering them. If you want any kind of reply, then people insist you use Whatsapp.