cindysafari

My husband and I will be going on our first safari to Kenya , in September (so excited!). We will be leaving from Los Angeles, at night, and we arrive at Nairobi at 7:30 a.m. Instead of staying in Nairobi over night, we will go directly from Wilson Airport to meet up with friends already on safari. Since we have no down time at first to recover from our flight, how bad do you think our jetlag will be? I know most people rest for a day in Nairobi before heading out. We will be armed with Ambien, to sleep on the plane. I'm hoping this helps...any opinions on this? Thanks!

stakerk

Most likely the jet lag will be bad, real bad probably, if you do not aggressively try to overcome the 10 hour time difference. When you arrive in Nairobi it will be 9:30 pm in LA.

I would recommend the following:

Try to acclimatize yourself to going to sleep in the days before departure as early as is possible. Too bad you are departing in the evening. Our departure in August is at 3 pm and so I will take an Ambien and should be asleep by 3:30 (It drives my wife crazy how fast I can fall asleep)

So go to sleep as soon as is possible after departure. Wake up as early as is possible and try desperately to stay awake until you get on your redeye from Europe. Take an Ambien about a half hour before take off and try to sleep as much as possible.

After arrival in Kenya try to stay awake as much as possible during the first couple of days. If you take a nap during the day, do not sleep more than 30 minutes, otherwise the body gets into a detrimental sleep mode.

Good luck,

Kevin from Thousand Oaks

sandi

If you can sleep on your flights do so. If not, then since arriving in daylight the best thing to reset your clock is daylight! So you're half-way there.

Once you arrive wherever to meet your friends, it'll be close to lunch. Between lunch and afternoon game drive (at 4pm) you can catch some Zzzzzzs.

If you miss the first game drive, don't fret, you've overslept because your body wants to. If you only nap, then after dinner, hit the pillow and sleep. You'll be scheduled for an early game drive next morning and should be okay with a full night's sleep behind you. If not, go on the game drive. You'll return to camp/lodge for breakfast at which time you can snooze till lunch.

Everyone's body is different - some get back to themselves with no trouble, others take longer. But, your body will dictate; however, the daylight is a good fixer to get you onto "Africa time."

mkhonzo

I agree with both above, I have always found that staying awake as long as possible on the day of arrival helps.

I normally wake at 3 am on my first night, so I have discovered the secret remedy of cpious adult beverages and or another ambien to ensure that the 3 am scurge is kept at bay.

matnikstym

I found that no matter how tired you are, once you step off that plane in Africa, sleep will be the farthest thing from your mind. The sights, smells,and feeling will overcome any thought of sleep. Stay awake when you get there, go to bed after dinner, take an ambien and you'll wake up refreshed, ready to go!

santharamhari

Hi! I agree to Dennis's comments above. I travel a lot between the US east coast and India. The 9:30 hr difference is awful (particularly, if i dont break in Europe). It hits me worse travelling east (to India).....the trips, when i've napped in the afternoons took me far longer to recover from the jet-lag (a week at times!!!). Try your best to stay awake when you get there......you will be so excieted that you willl be itching to do your first game drive. Yes, go to bed after dinner. You may wake up early due to the time difference, but, you will find yourself gradually adjusting day by day.

Hari

kimburu

I like everyone's ideas; mine's a mind game - take it with a pinch of salt, but I promise you this works for me, and, although there are soem "hard times" the principle is generally sound.

Think of it this way. You are leaving at night and arriving in the morning. You just need to sleep for 6-8 hours immediately before you land.

Therefore midnight doesn't arrive until you are on the flight from Europe. Set your watch to Kenya time before you board in LA and start thinking how tired you feel considering that it is still morning.... Weird! And everyone else is so tired too! Everyone on this flight must have been up all night with new babies or soemthing. Keep in mind if you sleep all "day" you won't sleep at "night" and so you need to be careful. Those other people sleeping so peacefully are making a mistake. The most important thing is to sleep on the second flight and to try not to wake up until just before landing. Then you are waking at 6.30 Nairobi time and you'll hopefully just feel like you had a very, very long day yesterday, and perhaps with a less than adequate amount of sleep. If sleeping on the first flight is going to stop you getting a good sleep on the second, keep your seat fairly vertical and a book or something in your lap or in your hand so you only doze. Don't hit the drugs until the second flight unless you are 100% sure they are going to work for you twice. Never tried it with two flights quite as long as yours but adjusting before and while on the plane works for me every time. Sleeping on the first flight and not the second will make things much more difficult when you arrive in Kenya.

By the way, the logical thing to do is to begin before you even get to the airport and get some sleep the afternoon and evening before you fly (it's night time in Kenya after all!)if possible. Not sure if an LA-Europe flight with no sleep would be too much to bear though.

Just a perspective...

cindysafari

Thanks so much for all of your good advice...I have been a little concerned since the jet lag really got me when we went to Paris last year, and I know this will be worse...I don't want to be so wiped out that I'm not appreciating the trip!
All of your suggestions were VERY helpful, and I sure appreciate it. Thank you!

Meichx

On several trips to Europe and Africa, my little tricks were: the minute you get on the plane, set your watch to the time zone of your next arrival (so, if you're landing in London, switch to that). Then, when you get on the plane to Nairobi, do the same again. And act like you're on that time--so sleep when you should be for your destination. So, if you're on a flight from London to Nairobi during the day, stay awake. Since it sounds like you'll be on that flight during Nairobi night, I'd pop an ambien and enjoy the extra sleep. When you arrive, again, take a nap if you need, but try to get your body clock moved over--sunlight is the biggest thing, it makes a huge difference!

cindysafari

Thanks to all of you...I'll try to follow all of your advice, and hopefully we'll do just fine.
Thanks again-Cindy

napamatt

Twice a year I head to Southern Africa and this is what I do.

Catch 1pm flight SFO-LHR, maybe grab a nap after lunch is all. Arrive early am and stay up all day in London.

Catch 8pm flight to JNB - hit my Virgin Suite and sleep until a couple of hours out of JNB.

First day on safari you get so much natural light that your body recovers quickly. That night I take an OTC sleep remedy, just to help keep me asleep. Unisom.

Coming back is way harder, because I can't get as much natural light in my office as I can in a game vehicle.

santharamhari

Napamatt,

Regardless, i think travelling West is easier to recover.....yes, you may still need a couple of days to recover. You wake up at odd hours in the night......

Hari

napamatt

Hari

You may be right, I thinking going on safari I have so much in my favor to recover quickly that I tend to do so. I don't fly west to go on vacation. Or I haven't in years, not since the Africa bug bit.

Bill_H

Cindy, we travel from the west coast to Amsterdam and then to Arusha ... Ambien is your friend (we had enough to take each night on safari as well as on the plane). Also, if you can arrange this, we simply broke the trip up by staying one or two nights in Amsterdam (hotel near the airport), this got us past the worst of the jetlag and we were in pretty good shape by the time we arrived in Arusha.

So Ambien and a lay-over ... works for me!

merrittm

bookmarking

santharamhari

what is ambien? Can i get it over the counter in the US?

Hari

cw

Hari,

Ambien is a prescription drug only in the US. For info see www.ambien.com.

CW

santharamhari

ok, thks.......will chk it out.

Hari

CarrieS

I wasn't going to chime in, but since Ambien has become the topic, I thought I'd throw in my two cents. Make sure to read the possible side effects; they are frightening. I took it on the airplane and then two nights on safari and had an out-of-character aggressive incident with my lovely family. Later when they asked me about it at dinner, I could not remember anything. I stopped taking it immediately. There have been lots of reports about bizarre waking behavior-- eating weird things; driving and not remembering it later...

martync

Our physician advised against ambien for travel, but instead prescribed xanex, which is not a sleeping pill. It just relaxes you so you can sleep. Ambien requires that you have a long uninteruppted sleep, which is not always possible on a plane. The xanex worked pretty well for us as we took it on our two overnight flights earlier this month.