This was a unique trip to pack for and we learned a few lessons about ourselves. Having been on a few longer trips recently, of a few months or more living on a cruise ship, we’ve gotten a bit complacent on streamlining and editing what we pack. Packing for safari forces you to really analyze each and every thing you bring along. The reason? You are only allowed a total of 33lbs/person on the smaller prop planes that we will be using. That includes everything, including your backpack. So, packing for 19 days in a 50 liter duffle bag, along with a small personal bag, was a bit of a challenge. Thankfully, we’ve been told that at a couple of our stops, we can get laundry done.

We each have 4 pairs of pants and four long sleeve shirts, a couple of tee shirts, a sweatshirt, a bathing suit, a jacket, 4 pairs of socks, two shoes and 1 pair of flip flops for the pool. Throw in binoculars, a wet bag for the bathing suit, sunglasses, wipes for the “bush toilet”, bug spray, sunscreen, a flashlight, a laptop and charging supplies and you get to 33lbs pretty quickly.

Another consideration is the remoteness of our itinerary, and how many medical supplies to haul along. We paired down our basic cold, flu, diarrhea, constipation, etc. meds into super small bags. We’ve got some antibiotics in case we need them. As far as toiletries, we’ve packed only the bare necessities. You’ll likely see Sharon’s hair pulled up most of the trip!

Speaking of medical preps, we are taking malaria pills for the duration of the trip, and have already received our yellow fever, typhoid, and hepatitis shots, which were recommended. In fact, you must prove a yellow fever vaccination before entering Kenya.

Another unusual step in our preparations was the treatment of our clothes with Permethrin. It was recommended that we spray our clothes and shoes, to repel ticks, Tsetse flies and mosquitos. It was not a difficult process and we hung our clothes in the garage for a day, to completely air them out before packing them. There was no odor from the spray and it washes out after 6 washings. While we don’t love the addition of a chemical to our attire, we think we’d hate Lyme disease, African sleeping disease and Malaria even more.

We enjoyed the challenge of packing for this trip, and hopefully, we’ve learned a couple lessons for future trips too.