Kabul and other Afghan cities: Afghani cash, Dari and Pashto, Roshan and AWCC coverage, and eSIM data before you leave the airport.
eSIMs seguras, eficazes e privadas em todo o mundo
Most visitors who come for work, family, or reporting spend their data in Kabul, with shorter hops to Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif, or Kandahar. Street-level 4G from Roshan, AWCC, and Salaam is a city thing; Hindu Kush valleys and district roads are not. Plan around towns you can actually call, not a cross-country loop that only exists on a paper map.
Cash is the Afghani (AFN). Cards fail at the first kebab stall, so you change money in Kabul and keep small notes for shared taxis that leave when the last seat fills. Friday is the weekly pause: ministries, many shops, and some bakeries go quiet. Eat kabuli pulao, mantu, and bolani with green tea, and learn a greeting in Dari or Pashto before you switch to English.
Hamid Karzai International is where the phone has to work — hotel pin, driver name, and a map that still loads when airport Wi-Fi does not. A travel eSIM covers the landing; a local prepaid SIM is an ID-counter errand if you stay longer. Coverage thins the moment you leave a provincial capital, so download offline maps while you still have a signal.
Essenciais
Dicas de viajantes
Conselhos reais de pessoas que estiveram em Afghanistan, selecionados pela nossa equipa com ligações às fontes originais.
The street rate and the hotel rate are different conversations. Change what you need in the capital, keep small notes for chai and shared taxis, and do not assume a Visa machine will appear in Herat the way it would in Tbilisi.
Afghanistan's weekly pause is Friday, not Sunday. Banks, many offices, and some bakeries go quiet. If you need a stamp, a SIM desk, or a domestic ticket, do it Thursday.
The Kabul–Jalalabad or Kabul–Mazar shared taxi is not a timetable. You wait in a designated yard until the car is full. That logic would be wrong in a country with booked coaches; here it is how the road works.
A bar of 4G on Chicken Street does not mean a bar in Bamyan or on the Salang. Download maps, keep a driver's local number, and treat mountain stretches as offline time.
Order the rice with raisins and lamb where office workers eat, drink green tea after, and skip the hotel buffet that could be anywhere. Mantu and bolani are the other two dishes that tell you the kitchen is Afghan.
Afghanistan Travel Experience
Travelers have been turned back on the Kabul road one day and waved through the next, with little warning. Confirm the road that morning; do not treat last week's report as a green light to leave the capital.
Ver fonteAfghanistan Travel Experience
The lakes sit in the same highland province as the empty Buddha niches. When checkpoints close the road, both sights close with it — this is not a Kabul day trip you can substitute with a different valley.
Ver fonteFAQ
In Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif, and Kandahar you can usually keep maps and messaging on Roshan, AWCC, or Salaam. Between those cities, treat coverage as patchy. Download offline maps in town and do not plan a mountain transfer that depends on a live pin.
A local prepaid SIM is an ID-counter stop and is useful if you need an Afghan number for drivers. An eSIM installed before the flight is the cleaner way to be online at the gate. Many travelers do the eSIM for data and add a local SIM only if a stay stretches.
Yes. Data does not pay for chai. Afghanis are what taxis, bakeries, and most restaurants take. Cards are uncommon. Unlock the phone (iPhone XS, Pixel 3, Galaxy S20 and newer typically support eSIM) so you can still find an exchange once you leave the airport.
Look for plans that attach to Roshan or AWCC in the cities you will actually visit. Salaam appears in Kabul as well. No plan turns a valley road into a city network; read the coverage as urban-first.
A single-country Afghanistan plan stops at the border. If the itinerary crosses, you need a regional plan that lists those countries or a second eSIM. Confirm the country list on the plan page rather than assuming Central or South Asia is one zone.
Planos eSIM
Hamid Karzai International is a bad place to discover that roaming is off and the airport Wi-Fi wants a local number. Install a travel eSIM before you fly and you can message a driver and open a map while you are still in the arrivals hall.
Roshan and AWCC kiosks exist in Kabul if you later want a local number; they are an ID errand, not a landing-day task. Qualitative city coverage is enough for maps and calls in the capitals — do not expect the same signal on a district road.