My friend had sunscreen taken last year and I’m too chicken to try to get hiking poles through as I don’t want them confiscated. My friend’s husband gets his poles through (usually traveling Denver to Alaska) but he’s handicapped and does used them as medical equipment (he has leg braces and I think uses a wheelchair through the airport). I think you were just lucky, busdriver.
There are exceptions to the little bottles of liquid now, like you can take OTC ‘meds’ like Nyquil.
Okay, TSA, it’s time to let sealed water bottles through! I’m tired of buying water at the airport!
Colorado in Sept might be iffy this year if you are traveling to the mountains. The fire danger will be huge so many parks and forests may be closed. I think next year might be better.
I have been to Antarctica and also on multiple safaris. Antarctica is best end of November thru early Feb. Smaller expedition ships like Lindblad /National Geographic are the best in the business. As far as safaris go, picking the right camps is important. Large generic camps used by many group trips leaves so much on the table. You do not need to be on a group trip. With the proper booking agent they can taylor best trip for your budget and make all arrangements. You meet people at each camp. I am in remote Botswana (surprising there is WiFi) right now having the time of my life -once again! Last several African safari trips I have used Expert Africa out of the UK. They have a toll free US number ( remember time difference). They are extremely well known and reputable beyond reproach in the whole of the safari industry and will have as many video / phone calls as you need to secure the trip you desire. There are some Reputable US companies that can also put together a custom Safari. I choose Expert Africa every time now. Why go to all the time and money and end up with a subpar trip? Options available run from super luxury to a bit more affordable. If you use a company for a group trip with a company like Micato, Natural Habitat, Abercrombie and Kent, you are paying many thousands in extra handholding that you do not need and getting an inferior trip. This knowledge comes from me traveling on over 20 safaris all over the African continent , staying at amazing camps with varied budgets from high to mid priced. I know many have enjoyed their group trips, In my experience, there might be a better way.
Yeah, I guess we get lucky once in a blue moon. The only reason we took poles is because we had a few that were garbage, the handholds covered in tape, so we figured it didn’t matter if we had to throw them away. But they let them through, tucked in my suitcase both ways.
Actually, I just booked our Africa trip. I have heard you don’t need a group trip in Africa, but honestly, I really like groups. We have met so many amazing people that way, some are lifelong friends. This trip has 24 max, which is perfect for us. Don’t want too few, in case you don’t find people you click with, and don’t want too many. It would be one thing if we were with several other people, but for just us, but I like someone else planning every last detail and having other people to get to know.
Who did you pick to go with, and when are you going? I’m sure you’ll have a great time. I want to do a safari eventually, but I want to get some more active trips in the next couple of years, before we can’t.
it is with Scenic, the ones we’d booked our Antarctica trip with on the Scenic Eclipse. We’ve gone on two trips with them and loved them. I ditched my concern about not finding online reviews for this excursion, seeing as we could apply our deposit to this trip, and their September trips were either fully booked or almost fully booked (so obviously some people were comfortable with them). We’re going at the end of September. Scenic is an Australian company that attracts many repeat customers, usually from the US, Canada, Australia and the UK
I think tennismom is trying to say, safaris are different than other types of trips. She suggests you pay less money, get a curated trip to smaller camps for a better wildlife and overall experience, and still have the opportunity to connect with and meet other travelers.
I have a hard time imagining a safari in a group of 24. How many game drives will you be on, vs other time filling excursions? How many people will be in each jeep? The ideal experience, is to be the only or among one or two other vehicles for best maneuvering for views of animals. A private vehicle is really nice, other people may want shorter/different drives or just be unpleasant to be stuck in a vehicle with. Ideally, you go to smaller camps and have guides who are very familiar with the terrain and local wildlife and their habits, so they can find them. Most won’t even accommodate 24.
I understand the excitement of booking and hitting the easy button, but I’d also encourage you to do a bit more research into the camps/lodges and activities, and decide if that is really the kind of safari you want.
I would also pick both, push the Antarctica trip to early next year, or 2028, and plan a safari for this fall that isn’t with a large group. I’d pick one of the luxury chains and do their flying between camp option, using the local guides at each one. You will likely run into the same people at the different camps, and there is already enough jeep time baked into the trips. andBeyond, Lemala, and Eleawana are a few of the companies in the region.
Thanks for the recommendations, but it’s too late, I booked the trip and the flights. If we decide this isn’t the right type of travel to Africa for us, next time we’ll book differently. Hopefully we will want to go back. But for us, much of the fun is the other people that we meet. We love the Brits, Canadians and the Aussies (though often we can’t understand a word they say). Sitting at a nice bar, drinking a glass of wine, laughing and having interesting conversations with these people is really half of the enjoyment for us on our trips, and you won’t get that comraderie spending a few days at the same camp with others. I’m fine staying at five star facilities instead of small camps, and perhaps with several vehicles, we won’t have the perfect wildlife viewing experience (though I don’t know if they all drive together), but I’m sure it will be wonderful. If not, I’ll know for the next trip. Our last trip was only 11 people and that was too small of a group.
We were just in a group of 13, which was fine for 5 night/6 days. I think for a longer trip, something closer to 20 could be ideal?
In our group of 13, there were two groups of 3, that each had one English speaker, requiring lots of translation. Of our 13, 4 were Americans and two were Canadians.
We’ve gone on eight Rick Steves trips, and they have 24-28 people, which seems perfect. Enough that you can find plenty of people you’ll like and want to hang out with, but not too many that you don’t get to know everyone. On this trip, there are 20 of us so far, with a max of 24. Extremely likely they’ll all be English speaking. That would be annoying to need translators.
We also like to do group trips and meet new people. We once went on a group that wound up being just 8, and it worked great and we all got along really (amazingly) well. Our “normal” size for group trips is probably about 20, and we always find someone to hang out with/entertaining to talk to. We tend to go on very active trips (cycling, hiking, etc.).
My SiL and her husband are going to the UK in April. When they bought their tickets they were about $2K each for premium economy. When they looked the other day, they were over $3,800 each.
I’m pretty sure we’ll keep our camping reservations and forego any foreign or other air travel for 2026.
I bought our tickets (premium select) on Delta two days ago. The airplanes are wide open, with not many seats sold.
In two days, those fares have increased by $2,270 a person. I usually purchase refundable tickets and keep checking in case prices go down, but holy cow. I recommend that people purchase refundable tickets for trips they’re taking, because this could get a lot worse! And if fares go down, you can cancel and repurchase.
We are extreme budget travelers, and for the first time, selected fully refundable tickets to the EU (purchased in Jan). In the past, the ability to cancel with 1 year credit was helpful, but we would never use the purchase price from this airline in one year’s time. Our CC has trip cancellation insurance (for specific reasons), but I’m not sure that applies if you can get credit.
The ability to cancel for any reason was a huge relief, and allowed us to change several times as we fine-tuned our itinerary. It allowed us to monitor flight costs (They never went down, and now the same ticket level is approx. 40% more). It serves as “insurance” (cancel for any reason), and also allows the ability to monitor pricing, but the flexibility was the best perk for us.
I had rebooked our LAX-AKL Delta Premium Economy tickets long before the trip due to a lower price - no fees and each of us received an ecredit. Those were due to expire in June. I planned a trip to visit son in Seattle in May and used my credit for one leg and part of the other. That still left husband’s ecredit hanging.
I had read online that even though technically an ecredit can only be used for the person named, there were potential exceptions that only an agent could initiate. So I tried in chat. Learned husband had to give his authorization to transfer credit to me. So he went on chat. Learned he had to call. So he called. Learned he had to be bumped to another type of agent. So he got bumped. Learned that agent had to get supervisor’s authorization. Learned that supervisor said it wasn’t possible but wanted to talk to husband.
Husband had made this his mission so he waited to talk to supervisor and in the end, she was able to transfer the ecredit to me. My theory is that she knew she could do it but other agent was not allowed to tell us; had to talk to her directly.
So my credit got me first class going up and his credit got me premium economy coming back. I kept an eye on prices and my flight back went down in price so I quickly switched to first class and applied more of the transferred ecredit. Now there’s still a portion that will be wasted; unfortunately can’t use it for anything but flights and checking bags (which are free for first class).
I kept telling husband I’ll just pay the balance but he was determined to get that ecredit transferred even though it was interrupting his basketball watching! When we were on speaker with the supervisor at the end, I said, we just had to talk to a woman to get it done and the she laughed - a lot.
Related to the trip, there was an oddity for the SYD-LAX return where the American code share ticket for Premium Economy was considerably less than Quantas showed for the same flight. So we booked via American and had Alaska as our mileage partner for the points. Quantas points would not be of use to us so that was a bonus besides the price difference.
I usually purchase refundable tickets and keep checking in case prices go down, but holy cow. I recommend that people purchase refundable tickets for trips they’re taking, because this could get a lot worse! And if fares go down, you can cancel and repurchase.