I am familiar with the trip you are taking.

First...one of the things i learned on this trip is that while people offer great advice...you must also remember to be true to yourself. An example of this is....I like to wear dresses and flip flops. I took no dresses and a few pair of flip flops...but thinking i would not need them...I sent them to storage while we were on the safari part of our trip. Which means i had to wear my safari shoes ALL the time. I so longed for my flip flops to wear to dinners. I would have changed into a simple dress and flip flops for dinner had i had them. But I LISTENED to the advice of others thinking they knew more than i did....and for THEM...their advice worked...but it was not always the right advice for me. So what i am trying to say is this...pack for your comfort. Honestly...the safari garb we purchased and wore was truly not even necessary. We could have worn t shirts and jeans. I did not wear my safari hat one single time...I hate hats...but thought it was necessary....so I bought us both one. I did not wear mine and after a few days...Steve opted for a ball cap. So there you go.The animals don't care what you are wearing. Most of the time, you are in a safari vehicle...that has a covered top.

We did find that our group did indeed dress "smart casual" for dinners while NOT on the safari part of our tour. I wore harem pants and dressy flip flops and Steve wore dress slacks and collared shirts and dress shoes. Everyone else...all 20 people....followed suit. I cannot predict how your group will dress...so my advice to you is to dress for your comfort.

One of the things i found confusing was the 44 pound rule. First...the only time our luggage was weighed was at the beginning of our trip in STL and We had two suitcases...one weighed 48 pounds and one weighed 46 pounds...we flew premium economy and were allowed 50 pounds for each bag... and the bags were again weighed in Maun before the flight to Cape town. We had to transfer all of our things from the duffel bag back into the suitcases. It was never weighed for any of the small plane flights. Also...the rule is PER PERSON. Which means for us we were allowed 88 pounds. We had a duffel bag each, a backpack each, and a camera bag each on the small planes. The 44 pounds applied to the DUFFEL bags not our carry ons. Another thing i found confusing was the "liquid rules". I thought that we could only carry travel sized liquids that apply to carry ons on flights. NOT TRUE. You could put full sized liquids in your duffel bags. The duffel bags were stored in the bottom of the small planes. The carry ons were place in an area in the back of the planes. No one checked how much any of them weighed or what you were carrying. As a matter of fact...we did not even have a ticket on some of the flights.

Tauck did everything right on this trip. We did not have any hiccups. I do want to clarify one thing...Tauck does not describe itself as a luxury travel company...because one persons definition of luxury may not be another's. There is no doubt that they use high end accommodations. We were not disappointed in any of the places we stayed.

We did not take a voltage converter and it was not necessary any place we stayed. We did use an adapter everywhere we went. I used the hair dryers provided and left mine at home....but we did take our laptop and we used the adapter for it. We also had to charge our camera batteries with the adapter. I took a multi plug to plug into the adapter so we could plug in more than one thing at a time. The one and only hotel in cape town actually had 110 voltage.

A recommendation....i took my cell phone...but i put it in airplane mode for the entire trip...and only used it when internet was available. I could get e mails and use messenger and look at travel talk and facebook and the tauck forum.I never took the phone off of airplane mode until i got back to the states. So I will have no charges.

If you have any other questions...please ask.