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Luggage: Checked or Carry-On

SheilaRobinson

Hello, we are first- time Tauck travelers doing the Wildlife Odyssey: South Africa, Botswana & Zimbabwe tour in June 2025. Also our first safari!

I know that Tauck will send us a duffel to use and I see that we can also take a small soft-sided carry on no more than 6lbs. We are not used to checking luggage - we do carry-on for all of our trips, no matter the length so having to check the duffel will be new to us. My question is about my camera. It weighs 5 lbs on its own. So I'm trying to figure out how to navigate my normal backpack that I carry on as well as my "must-haves" that I usually carry in my backpack.

I feel like I'm overlooking a step, despite reading through the forums on packing and luggage. Do you check another bag in addition to the duffel?

Thanks for your guidance!

Comments

SandyFeet

Sheila, when I took this trip I was given my duffel at the Royal Livingstone. I am a carry on only person too so I flew with my carry on roller bag and backpack. At the Royal Livingstone I transfered my safari gear into my duffel and continued on with that and my backpack. Tauck held my carry on roller bag, and I was reunited with it at the Maun airport when we flew to Capetown. If Tauck is now mailing your duffel in advance, then that would be a different story. On our Namibia trip Tauck mailed our duffels. We then packed them in our carry on roller bags. At our start hotel we did the old switcheroo and put our safari gear in the duffel, once again leaving the carry on bag with Tauck who held it for us until,we reached our final lodge. We left our duffels at the final lodge. I filled mine with some clothes I no longer needed and left it for the lodge staff. My husband gave his duffel to our TD who said she would find a good use for it. You might want to call Tauck to see if either of those two scenarios would work on your upcoming trip which is fantastic. Hope this helps. Any additional questions, please ask. Have fun!

SAdivr

We were mailed the rolling duffels before the trip. The rolling duffel is the only checked bag allowed. It’s not 6 lbs, it’s 16 lbs for the carryon. On our upcoming Wildlife Odyssey, we are allowed a small carryon and also a personal bag according to the email we received from our tour director, which is a relief for me, so I don’t have to carry my camera stuff and personal items all in one carryon bag.

British

We have recently received our duffels for another Africa tour. When I am ready to pack in a couple of weeks, I’m hoping we will pack one duffel as a carry on as it is an allowable carry on size. We will put lightweight clothing in there for the two of us. Then we will put the other empty duffel in another suitcase with heavier things like an extra pair of shoes and our toiletries. We hope to just take that one big suitcase between us.
Our personal items will be our backpacks as they are not too big. We are only taking one big camera this trip, our phones take great photos. We take binoculars each which we always have in our carry on bags. You really don’t need much clothing for Africa tours. You can easily get laundry done on your tour and I’m not too worried about safari type clothing being spoiled by someone else doing my laundry, although years ago, they did totally ruin one of my husband's safari shirts. The tour we are taking, the bags often don’t make it on the second flight which has happen to us once and seems to happen to at least one person every Africa tour we have taken.

SAdivr

The rolling duffel for the Wildlife Odyssey tour that they want everyone to use as their only checked bag is not carryon size at 30 x 15 x 14.

British

Sheila, I would really appreciate if you would write a review of this tour because we had it booked for 2020 and then again but we could not get flights that did not have an overnight layover at the time and Johannesburg did not have Covid testing on site, so we had to cancel. We had been on the Chobe river before on another tour. Last year we did the Chobe park and there were far fewer animals in the area away from the river and with lots of brush, very narrow tracks and not being allowed to go off road, it was a challenge. When a leopards was spotted, it was a scrum with everyone trying to hurtle along the tracks to get there, too many vehicles to get anywhere near and trying to locate the leopard even with binoculars, all the brush and vehicles, it was very tricky. Maybe we were unlucky. But I’d like to hear from others as that area of the park is the least amount of wildlife we have seen on any safari.

SheilaRobinson

Thanks to everyone for their comments. I see that the duffel is indeed too big to carry on and will have to be checked. I will call Tauck for clearer answers on what is allowed. @British I will definitely write a review after our trip! We are so excited!

Sealord

Sheila: If you normally do carry-on only, call Tauck and ask if they can send you the original Eagle Creek 59 L duffel that they used for years. It is a little bigger than the Ogio bag they are now sending for some other trips. I can see that it is available at REI and other places. I think our family has ten of them. As said in other threads, we travel with two of those duffels, and a roll-aboard that we use as a cart for one duffel which we carry on board, and we check the other duffel with the liquids. Lost luggage is definitely a factor on these Africa trips, so you want to have safari clothes in the cabin with you. I actually wear safari clothes on the plane. If they insist on using their rolling duffel, just check it and repack when you get there. You might need to buy the Eagle Creek duffels which would not take up much space in the rolling duffel.

SAdivr

The following is from our tour director for the Wildlife Odyssey tour. I suggest you follow the Tauck tour director’s instructions and not what other people are suggesting you do who haven’t been on this exact tour.

“Luggage/ Day bag: By now you should have received your Tauck rolling duffel bag. This will be your only piece of “checked luggage” for this tour. I realize that some of you may have been on other Tauck safaris or tours that used smaller duffels for portions of the trips; but now, a few of the Tauck safaris (including this Wildlife Odyssey tour) are using larger, wheeled duffle bags as our only checked luggage for the whole tour. Please double check that the duffel you received has wheels and pack in this. In addition, you are still allowed to bring your carry-on and small personal item (purse/backpack) as noted in the Tauck info.”

Sealord

No problem. If you can have a carry-on, and a back pack, and that giant wheeled duffel, you will have enough stuff to stay in Africa as long as Karen Blixen.