First time going on a safari!
Going on the B, SA, and Z tour in September.. to all of you veteran safari travelers… I Have questions hopefully you can help me out. What items are a MUST that I should bring along? What items should I absolutely leave at home? Luggage …. at one point I rthought I read that Tauck sends duffel bags for us to use. Is that true or a rumor. ?
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It’s true.
Lma01 , Hi!
All True.
I have done 4 safaris, going on my # 5.- Namibia (not many animals as other countries but we'll see plenty of animals
for sure @ Etosha N'tnl park.
I did the one you're going next Sept. 2 years ago, it is EXCELLENT!! very complete. you have nature, animals- lots of elephants, the Bushman tribe and also culture @ Cape Town.
If you can stay 1 or 2 xtra days in Cape Town, you get to see a lot more , Sept. is good time for whale watching, flowers, wine tours etc..
If you need names- tours I could provide them.
Okay, to start Zambia is pretty and there is a most go! Elephant Cafe- were you interact with elephants, feed them etc.. also there is a rest. in site, excellent and best in Zambia.
I would recommend a pre day arrival, so you can relax and do the Elephant Cafe @ lunch time on the first day of the Tour- The welcome day.- Day 1.
Most take with you, in Sept. early morning temp. gets a little cold- sweater and a jacket with a scarf it's enough. Something like this is great. Blue & Black colors here don't matter- no Tesetse flies.
Nice comfortable tennis shoes, sandals for the lodges, insect repellant, sunglasses, all personal items, couple of shorts and a couple of safari long pants.
A hat if you don't want sunburn your face or head. I never used it. Camera, Phone with chargers
Sorry, I have to go. Ask any question.
Mil
Lma01
read my report about your upcoming trip.
I dream of Africa ..(my experience)
Lma01, you are in for a fabulous adventure! My safari packing list: 3 convertible shirts, 3 pair long pants ( Columbia brand is great for wash and wear care ), one long sleeved and one short sleeved tee shirt in an easy care fabric, Tilley hat ( I like a hat that ties under the chin ), a closed toe shoe, a pair of Tevas, pjs, a puffy jacket that comes in a small pouch, a rain jacket with hood, a swimsuit ( the pool at the Royal Livingston is wonderful ) and there are other swimming opportunities at the lodges and the One and Only ),one “city smart”outfit ( I like black with scarves for pops of color, and you will want to be free of safari clothes in Cape Town, esoecially the night of the dinner in a lovely private home ). Always take an antibiotic and other otc meds to accommodate your personal health needs. I like laundry sheets for washing my “smalls”. The lodges provide free laundry service. I managed to fit this all into my carryon roller bag and backpack. Tauck gave us the duffel once we were in country. Tauck stored our suitcases for us, and we retrieved them in Maun before flying to CT. Heading home, I found the duffel to be helpful for packing dirty clothes and things I didn’t fear losing to a checked luggage snafu, and I used my carry ons for the “treasures” I purchased to remind me of a fabulous experience.. Leave your good jewelry at home, learn a few basic words in the local language, pack a smile and relax into the beauty, magic and adventure that is Africa. Have a great trip!
On the South African safari that I went on, the animals were sometimes close and sometimes quite a distance away. The big cats, especially, were usually some distance away. If you want good pictures of the distant animals you'll need a camera with a long lens. The iPhone, and I assume equivalent Android phones, do not produce good pictures at long telephoto.
Mike. I think you have been unlucky with you lion sittings, we have always had them near enough to touch in just about every tour
We got nearer and saw more big cats (and little kats
) on B,SA,Z than we did on K&T!
Closeness is all relative. Here's an example that everyone probably would agree is close.
@British - I can only report what I experienced. While we were close to some of the animals, many of the pictures I took were of animals some distance from me. The long lens allowed me to get a well focused close-ups of the animals.
This was especially true of the sightings of a leopard and a cheetah (separate sightings). They were quite some distance from us, perhaps 70 meters (for the leopard). While I could have taken a picture of them with my iPhone, I could not have gotten a close-up of them, and the quality of really long telephoto shots with the iPhone are not very good.
This picture was taken at a distance of about 70 meters. With the iPhone, all you would see is an orange blur in the grass.
Here's a "portrait" of a cheetah taken at a distance of perhaps 50 meters. You simply cannot do that with a smartphone. Note that the camera focused on the cheetah's eyes, and the depth of field is very short. His nose is just a bit out of focus.
Excellent photos, Mike! I am not a photographer, but I do enjoy taking close ups on my iPhone.
I saw quite a few cats in my K & T safari, some pretty close.
Sandy - Nice pictures, but I think they reinforce Mike's point. Compare the clarity of the two pictures you posted vs the two pictures Mike posted. The resolution on iPhone pictures, when at a distance isn't the same as with a lens made for capturing pictures at a distance.
Photography is a very personal thing. Each person should assess the ease of use, ease of transport, quality of the results, etc for themselves and make the choice that is correct for them.
Smiling Sam, my point exactly! I am a very happy traveler, and I love seeing others’ great wildlife photos. 😎
Thanks everybody for your input would’ve never thought to bring sandals, but it was mentioned twice. The pictures are stunning. Can’t wait to see what I can capture. Although, I Didn’t expect the animals to be that close to the vehicles.😱😱😱. Are giraffes ever seen on the tour or is it too far north for them?
The safari I went on was in the same general area and we saw a lot of giraffes. Here's a link to the blog of our trip.
https://www.mikeandjudytravel.com/2023-1RiversAndRails-01.htm You have to go a couple of pages in to see the animals.
Plenty of giraffes there! Enjoy. That rhino pic. We have a similar one with mom and baby by our vehicle. If you don’t have a fancy camera , you can still get great results. Big cameras must be going out of favor. I’m on a tour now. Mekong river. Out of 45 people on the boat, there is only one person with a camera. Quite a few people are not taking any photos
On another forum I participate in, we have a saying - "No Picture, Didn't Happen."
I enjoy reviewing our trips every now and then. Wouldn't be possible without photos.
If you do the entire trip looking through a camera view finder, you might as well be looking at a National Geographic. I do take pictures, but it is very secondary. Observing the animals is much more important to the experience than taking pictures of them.
Not Africa, but this photo is a small illustration of Sealord's point. I took this photo of the majestic Dolomites thru the coach window on the way from Cortina to Balzano. Can anyone see what I didn't until a few months later?
The gondolas?
@Lotusgirl Good eye! When traveling, I take a lot of pictures with my mind, and I practice “being in the moment”.@Alan Would love to see the Dolomites one day. My 75 year old cousin hiked them last year and had a ball!
I, too, memorialize my trips in my mind. I will take an occasional picture with my cell phone, however.
I’ve always wondered what happens to all these pictures once they are taken. Yes, we are proud of them because we’ve taken a fantastic photograph and some even get hung on a wall. We also share them with family and friends and after a certain point of showing our pictures, family and friends are probably thinking, enough already. There must be a zillion pictures floating around in the internet cloud. Just my opinion.
I don't think any photographer observes the entire trip through a view finder, but uses the camera to capture interesting moments. I can be as much "in the moment" as anyone while observing wild animals. I find it insulting to assume that I, as a photographer, cannot be as involved in the tour as much as anyone else. Perhaps you were speaking for yourself - that you cannot be taking pictures and be "in the moment" on a trip.
In any case, it's important to me to have pictures to remember what I saw and experienced. Memory is not reliable for reality.
For amateur photographers or scrapbookers, I think it is great. I agree that being forced to look at someone's photos, especially those that are obviously downloaded from the internet is boring. Merely my opinion. I do enjoy looking at some of the animal safari photos herein since those are very unique and something I probably will never experience.
It reminds me of the 'turning into your parents commercial"....."there is no need to take 47 pictures of the same thing." Or something like that.
@Mike Henderson Your photography is amazing, and you should be proud of it. I always say that what other people think of me is none of my business, but I occasionally take breaks from this Forum. Although most people who post here are kind and extremely helpful and knowledgeable, there are others who love to take nasty and immature pot shots ( not photographs 😂 ) from behind the safety of their computer screen. “Travel leaves us speechless and then turns us into storytellers”. Your photographs tell beautiful stories 👏
If we can still operate the PC and TV someday when we are in "the home"
I'll cue up the photos from one of our trips so we can relive the experience. 
We occasionally do that now!
Good eyes!
Gondolas??? Holy, moly!!! I took this photo in 2014. As I said, I didn't discover the yellow gondola until we got home. While I had to really zoom, this is the first time, ever, I noticed the cables, and red gondola and tower at the left!!!!
I saw the yellow one immediately. I looked a second time and saw the red one. I was looking for an animal hiding in a crevice. 😉
Mike Henderson: I’m sorry you are insulted … that was not my intent. I have a Bachelor of Science degree in photography from RIT. I never applied it in practice because I became a Naval Aviator and then an airline pilot. And I know that many ‘amateur’ photographers are far better than my humble efforts. You don’t have to go to school to be an artist. I was also geared to the more technical side of the ‘silver halide’ photography. We were not doing digital photography then. That being said, I’ve been on many tours where the entire tour was interrupted cuz someone wanted one more picture, or the ‘man with the camera’ pushed in front of everyone else to get their shot. Their is a certain amount of camera etiquette that should be considered on these tours. And, I’m not saying or implying that you do those things so don’t get insulted.