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so we recently went on a 3we safari through Kenya Tanzania and Uganda and in this video we're going to tell you what you need to pack for your African safari based on our experience not just with that trip but previous safaris we've done in South Africa Namibia Botswana Zimbabwe and Zambia so we're going to start by showing you a unisex packing list for a basic African safari which is based around the idea of you doing laundry once a week and then once you've got your basic list we're going to show you how to add on a few things in case you want to go to the beach do some jungle trekking or even climb Mount kilamanjaro so we're going to start with what suitcase you need to bring a lot of
people are going to tell you that you actually need to bring one of those small softsided suitcases for a safari and that's the only thing that you can get away with that's not really true we saw tons of people bringing big hard-sided suitcases to The Lodges and most of the time you're going to have Porters as well who are going to help you carry your bags the only real restriction that you need to worry about is if you're taking any internal flights and if those Airlines have restrictions so always check with your tour company to make sure what bags you can actually get away with bringing what bag did you bring Carl glad you ask me so what I brought is what I bring on every trip
which is a hybrid between a suitcase and a backpack and it's made by a brand called caribbe and it's like a 70 L backpack and it just means you can roll it around most of the time but if you're ever on like uneven a train you can turn it into a backpack and did you have any trouble with a bag that big and I had zero trouble that big thank you for asking Jam yeah it was absolutely fine no one even blinked an eye about the size of this bag even though it's 7ly leader the weight of it was fine and so it worked perfectly and so I for this trip used basically a smaller version of Carl's backpack it's another one that can be converted into a backpack uh did I ever convert it into a backpack on
this trip no I never did uh but I still liked having it for this because of these really rugged wheels so it's able to be carried over rugged terrain if it needs to be yeah and the thing to note if you're on like a camping basic trip then you're going to be carrying your bag everywhere if you're staying at the resorts like I barely even touched this thing cuz they won't even let you carry it to your own room the porters just insist so yeah bring what you want so one of the most important things to bring on any trip are packing cubes I swear by these because I've been using them for years and it just makes your life so much easier when you're traveling cuz no matter how neat and
tidy you might pack your suitcase it's going to get more moved around and jumbled up when you're traveling around so by having packing cubes you keep your clothes separated organized neat and you can just find whatever you need instantly and that brings us on nicely to this week's sponsor my friends Tim and Finn run a company called Tri travel gear and their packing cubes and other travel accessories are absolutely fantastic and we've been using them for years and the packing cubes have a double zip compression system so you can tightly pack in as much as possible and you can click on their Link in the description to check out their full range of products and this is one of the
newer ones but I can show you how I've been using it for years because this is one that's all old and creased and dirty and uh they're going to be screaming at me now cuz you can't actually wash these in the machine and keep them clean and tidy I just haven't sorry guys but yeah they're great to use on Safari as well cuz they're basically like little drawers you're not really going to have time to pack and unpack your suitcase every day when you're moving around so this way you can just open up your suitcase take out your little drawer and put it out on a table and you stay super organized which for someone like Carl is a good thing and for someone like me who becomes a human tornado whenever I'm unpacking unless I have
packing cubes it's really good for marital Harmony they can put that on a testimonial of website that's a freeb view Tim and so we talked about this in our 20 tips video a common misconception about safaris is that you need to wear safari colors basically all of green brown cream tan the whole time and how that isn't true you're going to be in Jeeps the whole time you can basically wear whatever color you want the thing that you really need to be thinking about when you're packing is actually the material of the clothing it's Africa it's going to be hot it's going to be humid and there's a good chance that you're going to get caught in a rainstorm at some point so quick dry clothing and fabric that's really light
and breathable is absolutely your friend also I hate to break it to you but that linen Safari outfit that you've been thinking of is going to be a wrinkly mess in about 2 minutes when you've been sitting in a jeep so maybe don't bring that I'm sorry to crush your dreams so let's start with tops like we said we're going to bring a week's worth of clothes so can you guess how many tops I'm going to bring it's seven so it's pretty simple I just packed seven different t-shirts and that's me good to go for the week and for my seven I have chosen one long sleeve top three t-shirts and three tank tops for your bottoms again we're keeping it simple three or four depending on your preference so I've got one pair of
leggings one pair of shorts two pairs of trousers one of which is a hiking trouser that is water resistant and very simple I have two pairs of shorts I've then got a pair of outdoor trousers it's good for hiking and then I always bring a pair of jeans Wherever I Go layers so what layers you're going to need obviously I'm not just wearing a t-shirt on top the whole time uh depending on the temperature varying during the day you're going to need to layer up and this is particular of note if you're going on a safari in like the southern countries like South Africa or Namibia it could be very hot in the day like up to 30° but at night time when you're in like the Namibia desert it can get down to near zero so I have a shirt
to wear on top of my t-shirt obviously it's going be a check shirt cuz it's me uh and then I have a hoodie as another layer and then I have a waterproof jacket as well and this wasn't necessary for the Kenya Tanzania Uganda trip cuz we're closer to the Equator but on the southern trips I bring a down jacket as well to keep you warm at night and also on those Early Sunrise safaris and for my layers I have just a white button-up shirt I really liked having this cuz you can sort of dress it up for dinner a little bit and you can use it as a beach cover up as well my fleece and my waterproof jacket and now the most important topic your underwear How many pairs do you need and how often can you wash them big
thing about Africa that you need to know is how many times are you going to be able to do laundry most of the places that you're going to be staying actually have laundry facilities so you don't really need to worry about that but there are two things that you really need to remember the first being that most of The Lodges that you're going to be staying don't have dryers they're actually going to be hanging all of your stuff to dry if you're getting laundry done there so that means that you usually give them your laundry really early in the morning like before your first game drive and you get it back either late that night or the next morning practically speaking what that means is if you're only staying one
night at a lodge you're not going to be able to do laundry there because you're just not going to have enough time to let it dry the second thing to know is that most places are going to charge you for laundry and some of them are quite expensive so because of that you may want to pack at least a week's worth of underwear so you can pick and choose the kind of places that you want to do laundry at or be able to wait until you get to a city where there's a laundromat so all that being said in here I have seven pairs of underwear and five pairs of socks I'm also packing three bras and no you don't get to see my underwear you perverts honestly oh yeah and this is my underwear as well yeah seven boxes seven pairs of
socks now Footwear this can vary depending on the individual but what I usually take on a trip is casual pair of shoes like these trainers some flip flops are always good to have and then some outdoorsy hiking shoes the hiking shoes aren't essential if you're just going on Safari in fact my good friend James would argue that you never need hiking shoes cuz he just wears Vans for whatever he's doing in any time of his life need to find some more string and for my pairs of shoes I've got one outdoor sneaker and then my casual shoes are going to be a pair of sandals and I've also got some teas for All Purpose your also going to need a cap or a hat some sunglasses and a bathing suit
because there's nothing better than chilling by the pool having a beer when you've been out all day on like a Dusty Safari you just want to just sit by the pool and jump in and relax so definitely don't forget a bathing suit I'm a big fan of my tily hat it makes me feel like an adventurer but it's not necessary but you look so cool you do one more not super necessary thing but something that I like to bring is I like to bring something that I can wear to dinner that's a little bit nicer than my everyday Safari clothes so I've just got this black jumpsuit it's really versatile it packs really easily and it makes you feel a little bit nicer yeah and I also pack a couple of extra shirts
that I can wear under evening like these nice ones that have not been eying for this video but what you going to do another way that you can dress up your dinner outfits a little bit is by purchasing some local scarves or maybe some local jewelry we bought this scarf in Kenya are really early in the trip and I think I wore it to almost every dinner just because it kept me a little bit warm in the evening as well as it made me feel kind of special and like I was actually in Africa instead of just wearing my normal clothes from home as well you're supporting a local community you're buying yourself a souvenir overall buying local accessories early in your trip and wearing them throughout
is one of my favorite tips to tell people so for electronics I'm not going to tell you what you need to bring you know whether you're bringing 50 cameras or just your iPhone an iPad computer whatever but what I am going to tell you about is that at The Lodges sometimes the power isn't on throughout the day or for only limited periods during the night so it can make it quite hard to charge all of your kits so a very useful thing to bring other than a lot of spare batteries is a battery charging pack like these are essential especially if you're out a long Safari all day long you might be taking millions of pictures even if it's just on your phone and that battery is going
to drain so bring a battery pack and you can charge up your stuff on the go and another thing to note if you're like me and you have millions of cables batteries hard drives all that stuff it can become quite messy and hard to keep organized in the handle and luckily our friends at tripped have designed a travel pouch just for that how convenient so yeah and again I've been using this pouch for years and it's just so useful and helpful for keeping all my stuff organized and easy to access another thing to note as well is maybe bring some things to keep yourself amused and occupied on these very long days and travel days bring plenty of entertainment on your phone as well as
maybe a book but a pack of cards is a super easy one and always goes down well especially in a group environment so I'm going to talk to you guys about toiletries and first I want to talk about Trip's toiletry bag cuz it's actually really good and really useful especially when you're going in between places it's one of those things that you can just pack it all into this one little compact Cube it's got a hanger it opens up it's got a million different little pockets and it has this TSA compliant clear bag where you can keep all your liquids and just pull that out when you're going through security that was loud nothing was broken in making of this video hopefully I'm not going to tell you what I pack in
my bag cuz you know what works for you know what's good the things I do want to tell you about are sunscreen you're going to need at least Factor 50 if you are of a freckly lobstery complexion like myself I'm just being honest the other thing to think about is bug spray the bugs in Africa are really bad especially at night they are tiny you will not even notice when you they bite you so make sure you bring some bug spray and I'm sorry environmentalists but something with DEET you're going to need it trust me and ladies here's a couple things you don't need hot hair tools you're not going to be able to use them at The Lodges most of the time you don't really need makeup tinted sunscreen
maybe some mascara that's it and you don't really need jewelry pick up something local and don't worry about the rest another important thing that I always bring is a little medkit now this is basically just like my selection of random drugs that I take around the world with me uh when you're on Safari you're going to be nowhere near a drugstore so anything that you think you might need you probably want to bring with you so that's painkillers Band-Aids vitamins and especially things if your tummy gets a little weird so uh things to stop you pooping and things to make you poop someone had to say it and also remember to bring any malaria pills that you're taking if you want to find out if
you need to take malaria tablets for which country you're going to the website that I always use to has all this information is called fit for travel you can just go on there look up the country that you're visiting and it'll tell you exactly what vaccinations you need and whether you need to take malaria tablets so definitely check out fit for travel has all that information there another important thing to remember with vaccines is you need to bring printed copies of your vaccine certificates or vaccination records they may be asking for them at the border speaking of borders it's also important to bring printed copies of any visas that you have even if they're e visas a lot of the times these borders are going
to ask for printed copies especially the land border between Kenya and Tanzania we actually had to go to a print shop so some people could print their visas not me though we were prepared now here's a couple random things that you might want to bring uh that don't really fit into a category at all we got a water bottle you cannot drink the tap water in Africa but most of The Lodges as well as any tour company you're on are going to have big reservoirs to fill up your water bottle every day so you're never going to worry about fresh water a neck pillow you're going to be taking some long Journeys whether it's on the road or in the air so keep yourself comfortable get some sleep I also like a little bum bag to keep all
of my important stuff like my passport headphones wallet anything like that you also probably want to take a day bag I really like a collapse ible one that I can pack in my main luggage and the reason I like that is not just so I have a bag to take with me on Safari to pack all my day stuff in but also on the way home if I've filled something with souvenirs I have an extra bag to carry stuff home with me and trips actually make one of these really great day packs that entirely fits the brief there and also don't forget your binoculus like I just have right now for this packing video they're somewhere in the house but you know what pulus can't all be perfect so whilst you're visiting Africa
you're probably not going to just do Safari you might tag on some other experiences as well so we're just going to quickly mention some ideas of what you might also want to pack for those special experiences and these are just a couple extra items that you can add on to this basic packing list so you're still completely ready to go one place that we highly recommend if you're going to East Africa is to stop in Zanzibar and go to the beach which we did in our previous trip this will also work for if you're going to mosan Beque or maius or the SE shells or any other Beach destination in Africa that we haven't thought of here so if you've got another fun beach destination in Africa that we
haven't mentioned just let us know but keep it nice and simple to add to our basic packing list I've got one extra pair of shorts one extra bathing suit and then a beach dress I just brought an extra pair of swim Shields that's it for any on foot Wild life trkking like going to see the gorillas in Uganda or the chimpanzees what you're going to need on top of the basic packing list is some long hiking trousers some long hiking socks that you can tuck said trousers into uh good hiking boots if you haven't packed them already and also if you're in a jungle where there might be lots of sharp vegetation that you're scrambling through they advise you to bring some gloves in fact they told us
to bring some gardening gloves and the reason they say gardening gloves is cuz they've got these padded hands and protected fingers so that if you're grabbing on to things in the jungle you're not actually going to hurt your hands and the vegetation isn't going to come through and puncture your gloves know looks like he about to murder someone the other thing to remember about jungle trekking is you actually do need to be wearing those Safari neutral colors that we talked about earlier cuz you're not going to be camouflaged by the Jeep anymore don't wear an orange jacket and scare the gorillas away the other major thing to do in Africa is to climb Mount kilamanjaro now full disclosure neither of us have
done that but we've both done some major high altitude hikes in the past so we can give you some tips about what you might need to wear this is not intended to be an absolute packing list for kilamanjaro just some things that you might consider bringing along way and what this comes down to is layers you're going to need lots of different layers to adjust to the everchanging temperatures as you're going up the higher altitude so as well as all the clothes we've mentioned previously you're going to want some Thin thermal layers maybe a thicker down jacket maybe a fleece and then a neck warmer some gloves that aren't designed for gardening and also a toque like my Winnipeg Jets toque right here and we just made the playoffs come
on so that's it for our packing list hopefully it's been helpful and useful as always if we've forgotten to mention something which we often do then please leave it in the comments and let us know but also I'm now launching my own Amazon store where everything we've mentioned today you can purchase in one go and that includes the trip travel gear which will be featured in there which you can access by clicking on the link in the description so what we've done is we've actually made it really easy for you we've compiled these different lists of all the things you need all those bits of gear that you might need when you're going on Safari and hey we know you're going to buy it from Amazon anyways
instead of giving all your money to Jeff Bezos toss a little bit to this guy also if you haven't checked out are 20 tips of things we wish we knew before doing a safari then check out that video right now if you haven't watched the documentary series of our time in Africa then seriously go watch that cuz this is all what are we even doing here but as always guys thank you so much for watching don't forget to subscribe like thumbs up comment all the usual stuff and then next up on the channel is going to be our New Zealand road trip um from the start of the year and it was our honeymon and we're going to share that with you not everything it's but uh but most of it so keep your eyes peeled for
that and we'll see you again very soon by waving again
