Planning your trip of a lifetime, a African Safari

 There are many steps to planning a trip to Africa. It is much more involved than one may think and takes a lot of planning. I have done most of the hard part months ago.

Where to go
 First was just deciding where I wanted to go within Africa, there are 50 countries to choice from and many different types of safaris.
I recommend a good travel agent like myself to help make this part and the rest very easy.

When to go
Once that was decided, now I needed to look into when we wanted to go. Our window of time was small making this fairly easy.

Booking the trip
Now it was time to start booking the flights, hotels, and tours. This took a few days of making sure the places we wanted were available in the time frame we needed. Most of the small bush camps only have 4 thatched chalets, we needed 3 of them.

Once everything was booked and flights paid for I needed to purchase Travel Insurance. It is not only important to have it in case something happens while traveling but also to protect the money you just invested on the cost of the trip. If for some reason you need to cancel the trip without travel insurance you will not get your money back. Flights are non refundable and many hotels and tours have penlites for cancellations. Travel Insurance is money well spent.  

Travel documents need to be check. The passport must be valid for at least 6 months from the start of the trip. We need to have 4 blank visa pages in our passports.   A Visa into Zambia is required which we can purchase at the airport when we arrive. Need to be sure to have cash for this.

All the above should be done at least 6 months from the time you are looking to travel.



Once the trip is getting closer there are still many things to do to get ready

 Vaccinations
Depending where you are going within Africa there are certain vaccinations that are both recommended and required in order to travel there. It is a good idea to be up to date on all your vaccinations before traveling. One being tetanus.

It is recommended you get Hepatitis A - you can get hepatitis A through contaminated food or water in South Africa, regardless of where you are eating or staying.

Malaria is recommend for travel and is a prescription you take before, during, and after your trip to prevent malaria

Yellow fever is required at this time for travel to Zambia. The shot can be given at least 3 weeks prior to departure.

Shopping

The fun part, shopping for the trip. Once again packing for a safari takes some planning as must of us don't have the type of cloths needed in our closets. See my
Eat Drink Travel be Happy: What type of clothes to pack for a Safari:

Found these hats at Costco which will be perfect, they fold up, protect from the sun, a cord to hold them in place if windy,  and only $15.00.

 Pack For a Purpose
In addition shopping for cloths and items for our use we can also Pack For a Purpose. Many safari camps and lodges support the local communities. The Bushcamp Company helps support two local schools in remote areas close to where we will be staying. To help with this we can bring items to donate. The supplies they need:
   Pencil cases - these are really popular as they can't be found in local shops
.       Pens  (blue or black ink)
.       Rubbers
.       Pencil sharpeners
.       Coloured pencils (they tend to have normal pencils)
.       Crayons
.       Fun stickers
.       Footballs and pump (deflated)
.       Wind up torches
.       Colouring in books
.       Second hand clothes
.       Colourfull educational posters
 
 The web site you can check out as well - Pack For a Purpose. They have some good suggestions on how to pack these items, as well as lists of specific requests from lodges around Africa.

 Read up
Now that everything is planned and in order I can spend some time reading up on things. My books came the other day, thanks to George my on line shopper. I think it and it appears.

The only thing left now is the actually packing for the trip.