I'm planning on taking my wife to Tanzania for her first trip to Africa next year. A prior post about a wife's over-packing hit a nerve.

My wife takes three, yes three, humongous rolling suitcases for a one-week trip to Paris (one of them is totally empty). I will say she plans ahead.

I'm planning on taking her on her first trip to Africa next year -- to Masailand. I can't just pack for her, but how do you control the female need for three changes of clothes a day and ridiculous quantities of shoes when you take your wives/girlfriends on safari?.

Don't try and control it........

Let her do her thing..........life is too short.

And an empty case to Paris..........she's a smart woman

Simple - Cut the wheels off her suitcases...

You must be divorced

Here's an old proverb for you:

Better to live on a corner of the roof
than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.

+1 for Blair's answer.

Funny story when leaving South Africa , the police wanted to inspect my rifle. When I opened the(over stuffed) Tuff pak a high heel ladies shoe fell out on the policeman. He laughed and said okay just close it up, never checked the rifle. Point being share the load ,remember Happy wife Happy life. By the way she wants to go back

Happy wife for any cost?
We do it to ourselves

I happen to love my wife dearly & want her happy.
If she wants to take extra luggage, let her.
Second trip she'll scale down.

I'm lucky, my wife travels very light. Impressive how little she needs. My daughters are pretty good too, but all have travelled a great deal. The more you travel, the less you take.

Make her carry the suitcases

quote:

The more you travel, the less you take.

Amen to that.

Clara and I love to travel and hunt together. On packing, some of it will just come with experience and the other requires open conversation. When we return from a trip, we look at what we packed and what we used vs. what was not used. On our recent trip to Namibia, we laid out everything we planned on carrying in a spare bedroom. We practiced packing and talked about everything we "needed", reminding ourselves that they do laundry daily in the camp. Worked out great and we traveled with a medium suitcase each and a carryon each. The carryon's contained everything we needed to go hunting even if our suitcases were delayed. When we returned, we again discussed what we used vs. what we could have left behind.

Open conversation helps. However, in the end, men and women have completely different "needs". I am glad my wife cares about her looks. Why fight it and what does it matter what she packs? Be happy the love of your life wants to go with you. Its well "worth the weight" of carrying the extra essentials when you return home and she looks at all the photos and asks, "When are we going back?"

A ladyfriend of mine said her best trip to Europe was to France, when they lost her bags. She bought some undies, a bikini, and a couple of wash-and-wear dresses.

Mine has the opposite problem; she packs everything at the last minute. Last night we went to Phantom of the Opera (I fell asleep for the first half); the plan was to go to bed and get up early and run 4 miles today at 6:15. She had a 9:30 flight to JFK. Her plan was to pack after the run. I told her she was crazy. As it was, she packed most of it after we got home last night after 11:00 pm and finished this morning after our run. As usual, it was a panic to get her to the airport.

When it said my wife is packing I thought she was carrying a gun like some other ladies I know.

My wife is packing...I thought she was packing a pistol!

You will be needing a small charter airplane, so plan ahead and be sure you have a DC-3 or at least a large(er) twin engine aircraft on reserve for both in and out! Otherwise she could be leaving luggage at the charter hangar.

I guess I'm lucky, my wife & I are going to Masailand this Aug/Sept for 15 days, of which

only 5-6 will be hunting plains game. We go to the crater for a day or two, then to Tarangire for

a couple of days then to Zanzibar for four days. She is taking a backpack size carry-on & another

small roller bag we could use as a carry on. Essentially that will be all I am taking along as well.

They have excellent laundry services everywhere & I always seem to take too much anyway?

I'm not taking any firearms this trip so that helps lighten up the load a bit. Don't sweat an extra bag or two.

Enjoy & have a great safari!

Jim

I'm lucky!! End of story.

quote:

Originally posted by lavaca:
I'm planning on taking my wife to Tanzania for her first trip to Africa next year. A prior post about a wife's over-packing hit a nerve.

My wife takes three, yes three, humongous rolling suitcases for a one-week trip to Paris (one of them is totally empty). I will say she plans ahead.

I'm planning on taking her on her first trip to Africa next year -- to Masailand. I can't just pack for her, but how do you control the female need for three changes of clothes a day and ridiculous quantities of shoes when you take your wives/girlfriends on safari?.

Mate, When you take your wife hunting with you you just have to work out how to take the kitchen sink and a portaloo with you, and once you have done that everything else is easy.

Blair, you are right. Lion, we don't have enough runway!

lavaca,

You have a problem going to Tanzania with charter planes and runway lengths as I understand it.......

I'm SURE you will over come this for her. And she will learn from the experience as to what to pack, if she comes back with you for another safari.

My girlfriend always comes back with 20-30 kilos overweight baggage from Europe, especially if it's Paris or Rome/Milan.

And I have 20+ kilos of wine....so who cares?

I adore her, so why worry? C'est la vie!

quote:

Originally posted by Blair 338RUM:
lavaca,

You have a problem going to Tanzania with charter planes and runway lengths as I understand it.......

I'm SURE you will over come this for her. And she will learn from the experience as to what to pack, if she comes back with you for another safari.

My girlfriend always comes back 20-30 kilos overweight from Europe, especially if it's Paris or Rome/Milan.

And I have 20+ kilos of wine....so who cares?

I adore her, so why worry? C'est la vie!

Maybe things are different in Oz, but I'd suggest rephrasing the sentence I bolded, or not letting your gf read what you posted.

Thanks mate.........fixed that typo.......

All good fun. My wife leaves in a couple of weeks with our daughter to meet our son who is in France currently. They are meeting in Paris, and then going to somewhere in Germany, probably Berlin. I saw the usual designated empty suitcase in the corner of the living room. Easy to identify, It's the biggest.

My wife and I just spent two weeks in Italy. We each packed a carry-on and a small duffel.

The only difference for Africa both times was the inclusion of rifles and a bag which contained the ammo, in addition to our carry ons.

Packing light has huge advantages and thankfully we don't suffer the need to overpack.

i am the one who mentioned my fiancee's need t over pack for our 3 weeks in Africa( we are sitting in the Emirates lounge in Joburg as i type). she finally saw the light and brought 1 mrdium check in bag and 1 small cabin bag. she just stated that she had everything she needed and nothing extra...and she can't wait to come back next year( she absolutely loved tracking and watching me shoot an elephant).

quote:

Originally posted by Blair 338RUM:


Thanks mate.........fixed that typo.......

Just as well, that could have been a serious loss of brownie points.

quote:

Originally posted by boarkiller:
Happy wife for any cost?
We do it to ourselves

No thanks, not going to put up with that much BS.