What to pack for a Moremi safari

The bag, and the limit.

The aircraft decides the bag. Nearly everyone reaches camp by light aircraft from Maun, and a light aircraft means two rules: soft-sided bags, because the luggage rides in the pod under the belly and a hard case does not fit, and a strict weight limit that counts your hand luggage and camera bag with the rest.

The pod sets the shape as well as the weight: about thirty centimetres wide, thirty-five high and seventy long. A bag that will not go in stays in Maun, where it can be stored until you fly out, and a heavier load buys an extra seat on each leg rather than a place in the pod. The pilot has the last word on both, and keeps to the timetable.

Typically around 20 kg per person including hand luggage — the exact allowance is your carrier's and is confirmed with your booking.

Keep the essentials in the cabin: medication, a change of clothes, anything you could not cheerfully lose for a day. Hand luggage is your insurance against a delayed bag.

What to wear, and why.

Quiet bush colours — khaki, green, brown and grey. Bright colours and white stand out to wildlife long before you can tell why; the bush palette lets the vehicle stay part of the scenery.

Dressing is subtraction. An open vehicle before dawn is cold and mid-morning is warm; layers come off as the day fills in, and a fleece left in the vehicle costs nothing.

Evenings are casual at even the smartest camps: long sleeves and trousers earn their place against insects, not dress codes.

From May to September, the mornings on an open vehicle or a boat are properly cold before the sun is up: a warm windproof jacket, a beanie, gloves and a scarf earn their place, and all of it is off by mid-morning.

The list.

Worth their weight, and what to leave behind.

Binoculars come first. One pair per person, the single item most guests under-rank, and the one that turns a distant shape on the floodplain into the sighting of the day.

Children feel the cold mornings more than the adults do, so their warm layer is the one to pack first. And a small pair of binoculars of their own does more for a child's drive than anything else in the bag.

Camera gear travels with two realities attached: dust and water. Spare batteries and cards, a padded bag, a dry bag for the mokoro, and charging done at camp, since there is no power in the vehicle.

Most camps run on solar or generator power, and charging happens in the tent or the main area, never in the vehicle; hairdryers and straighteners exceed what a tent's supply will carry.

Repellent and sunscreen are packing items; anything clinical, the tablets question, the jabs, the conversations behind them, is health advice, and it lives with malaria and health in Moremi.

And leave the fragile and the precious at home. Laundry here is vigorous, vehicles bounce, boats splash, and dust gets everywhere; nothing you will miss was worth bringing.