When we arrived on St Helena we didn’t have any British Pounds on us as it proved to be impossible to get any in Namibia since none of the exchange bureaus had any. To clear into St Helena you need to pay 20 GBP per person at the immigration office. They do not have card facilities, and they also informed us there is no ATM on the island, so the only way to get money is from the Bank of St Helena (there is only one branch/office). Since everything, including the bank, closes at noon on Wednesday, we were in a bit of a pickle.

Luckily for us we had a few US$ on the boat and the Saint Helena Yacht Club were kind enough to give us a temporary loan with the US$ to be exchanged once we got our GBP.

What we should have done, is sign up for and preload the Saint Helena Tourist Card prior to leaving Walvis Bay. This card allows you to pay at some of the supermarkets where you can also get cash back if you purchase for a minimum of GBP5. This option is cheaper than drawing from the bank as they charge 5% on each withdrawal and you are then tied into the banking hours and may have to stand in a que etc. It is to be noted that at most places the cash back maximum is GBP50 however at the Rose and Crown shop their maximum is GBP100.

You can load your tourist card using a visa, master card or even apple / google pay. Whatever funds you don’t use can be reversed back onto your visa, master etc before you leave.

It is a good idea to register for and load the tourist card prior to arriving as you need access to the internet in order to do so. Internet access is extremely limited on the island. There is no free WiFi at all and internet bundles can be purchased at only a few places on the island.

With the tourist card, you can take a screenshot of the QR code and that is what they use at the shops together with your pin. So you don’t need to be online in order to use your card provided that there are sufficient funds loaded on your card.

We use the card all the time here and if we had know this before hand, it would have made our first days on the island a lot less stressful.