Hi everyone,

I just wanted to say that this site has given me a lot of good information for the planning of our family trip to Southern Africa. Our extended family of 10 people (ages 9-72) will be traveling to SA, Botswana and Vic Falls Zambia, early July 2008 for 14 days. Based on the recommendations from this site we used Vanessa at Eyes on Africa and she has been great.

We will be staying at Kings Camp in SA, Muchenje in Botswana and the new Toka Leya at the Falls. I was wondering if anyone had any experience with these camps.

Also, my family consists of myself my husband and two boys 9 and 11. Do you have any suggestions regarding the best Travel Insurance for a young family?

Finally, does anyone have any recommendations for how to entertain two children (who have only flown once before) on the long flight from the US to SA?

Thank you all in advance.

Happy Holidays!!

I've been to Kings Camp twice, total of 10 nights. You will like it.

regards - tom

I'm curious about the choice of Muchenje for Botswana... is there any particular reason for selecting this place?

I typed Muchenje into the search box above and checked through the small number of threads about the place. Whilst what I read wasn't particularly negative it certainly didn't give me any reason to add Muchenje to my wishlist for my next trip to Botswana.

King's Pool is in a great game viewing area (same areas as Savuti). You should have great general game viewing and have high chances of seeing both cheetah and wild dogs.

Hi Kavey,

Muchenje came highly recommended by Vanessa. Since it is not in the Chobe National Park, off road tracking and night drives are permitted and that is something we were intereted in. Also, it was highly rated on www.tripadvisor.com.

Unfortunately, we are not staying at King's Pool (which I hear is superior). Near Kruger we are staying at Kings Camp, since we were not able to secure a reservation in Mala Mala as we just started plannning the trip a couple of weeks ago and it was difficult getting reservations at various camps.

THanks for all your help.

With 10 of you going, I can understand tight reservations at camps that have a capacity of only double that or so. Who of you is going to be the group leader/tour guide/trail boss?

regards - tom

Hi Tom,

I don't know. We are hoping to have all of our Capetown activities planned before we arrive. Then we could coordinate the transportation thru Eyes on Africa. I thought that at the camps each separate family (within the extended family) would decide what at activities they wanted to do.

Am I completely wrong in my assumptions?

Tara

Regarding your question about Travel Insurance; We had to file a claim with CSA last year for cancelation. They were great to work with and prompt in paying the claim.
You might want to compare companies at www.insuremytrip.com

Sounds fine Tara. At like Kings Camp the ten of you will be in two separate vehicles, two guides, so you can pretty much do whatever each group wants. And at meals you all could sit together or separately, whatever suits. I have never traveled like your group, only a couple of us. Maybe someone else who has gone with a large family can chime in here.

regards - tom

Ooops, sorry for misreading.

And thanks for the info about night drives at Muchenje!

I took my 9 & 11 to Africa in 2006. I was worried about the long flight but it turned out fine. They took gameboys, books, snacks - anything I could think of. They didn't really use any of the stuff they brought. The planes had the personal entertainment systems in each seat and they just used that for playing games, watching movies, and they slept. No issues at all. They even ate some of the food. They did take small pillows in their backpacks and they used them through the whole trip.

Have a great trip!

Hi Sundowner,

Thanks for answering. One more question. How did your kids do on the smaller intra-Africa flights? Were they frightened by the smaller planes or did they think it was cool?

I am very excited about this trip, it will truly be a trip of a lifetime, but I am nervous about the kids and all the logistics.

Tara

The kids were fine on the small planes. One was a 6 or 7 seater and the other was around 40 seats. They thought the planes were cool. (I'm the one I was worried about!)

Since I had been to Africa before I wasn't worried about anything on the trip with the kids other than the plane ride. Well, I was also worried they would get bored during the down time between game drives with "nothing to do". We did have a laptop and DVD's they could watch but they never turned it on. They read their books, sat on the patio and looked for animals, played cards. I'm sure it will all turn out well for you, too.

I know I've said this on other posts about kids. They did sometimes fall asleep on game drives. I just let them sleep and woke them if we were seeing something cool. Early mornings and late nights took a toll. And they are too old or too young to appreciate the "nap time" during the middle of the day.

Cindy

Hi Cindy,

Did each of your children take a camera and/or binoculars on the game drives? I have one son that loves to take pictures, especially of birds.

I was thinking of getting each of them an in expensive digital camera to make the game drives more exciting, but then I thought
they might be so awed by the experience that they would not use the cameras.

Tara

Tara, I borrowed a Canon S2IS for the 9 y.o. (boy) and borrowed a video camera for the 11 y.o. (girl). They both used the cameras some but not as much as I thought they would. I didn't take binoculars at all because I always use my camera (dslr) as binoculars. It is kind of hard to see what you're looking at through the S2IS so the 9 y.o. wanted binoculars and we rented them at MalaMala.

We also bought neck scarves and beanies for the kids at MalaMala because it was real cold in the AM/PM.

I would try to get them a camera, especially if your son is interested in photography. I don't know what inexpensive is to you but I would recommend something like the S2IS, S3IS or a comparible 12x camera of a different brand. (There are several threads here about the p&s cameras.) I think these run $250-$300 now. Maybe less after Christmas and after February/March when the new cameras are announced and the prices of the old models go down. If that's too much, buy one for the whole family and let the kids use it on safari. They are a good camera for birds, too.

Here's something else to think about for when you get home. I took quite a few of the pictures we took in Africa (animals/people/sights/standing in front of the small plane etc) and went to one of the websites where you upload your photos and make a bound, hardback book. I made a book of our trip for our family and printed three copies (one for us and one for each of the kids). Another family of four went with us so I made a different book for them and printed three copies for the couple and each of the kids. (I had them give me a digital copy of all their pictures so it would be personalized for them.) Everyone loved the books and they're very cool. Usually they have specials going on and you pay full price for one book and get the others at half price. If they don't have that deal, just print one book and when they bombard you with offers to get more books printed at half price you can get the others printed.

TwoBoysMom,

How very exciting for the whole family.

I think the kids will enjoy their own cameras and binocs. Like you said, they don't have to be expensive.

It will be a trip of a lifetime.

I saw a copy of sundowner's hard bound book of her safari photos. Nice large (7x9 inch?) glossy pages, good color, very nice. Much much nicer than a photo snapshot album. I'm sure the kids have loved showing it to friends.

regards - tom

Just another comment on how much fun it is to make a "book" of your safari as a keepsake or to share with friends and family. We also made small (5x7) paperback books with our favorite shots to send as a thank you to our guides in Kenya and Tanzania. We used Snapfish, but I think most of the online photo sites will have templates to make these books.

As a lot of you have heard numerous times, I make a DVD of our safari so friends and family can watch it on their TV. It is very time consuming to put together, takes me at least 80 hours, (for 30 min show) I use Proshow Gold or Proshow Producer. Works with both still photos and video clips. Easy and intuitive to use and very versatile in its capabilities. Anyway, after making it and cover art (photos), the DVD's are then easy, quick and cheap to run off.

regards -tom

Drugs, drugs, lots of drugs... All three of my kids were born in Los Angeles. Our entire family lives in the northeast. We would regularly make the flight from LA to Dulles. We'd walk across country, chasing our 1, 3 and 5 year olds up and down the aisles. Some pediatricians will recommend Benadryl but that only hyped my kids. I finally learned to put together special age-appropriate, surprise trip bags for each kid full of dollar store toys, Madlibs, handheld games, puzzles, a special stuffed animal (lions, maybe?) and a lot of junky candy and gum - the stuff I didn't usually buy for them. That worked for 1 or 2 hours. I can't help you much for the other 14. sorry.

twoboysmom - on a more serious note, do ask your pediatrician about treatment for clogged ears from altitude pressure. One of my kids always had ear problems on planes. We had to teach all of them how to hold their noses and "pop their ears" and my son with ear problems started on a regiment of Afrin 24 hours in advance of departure. We always carried Afrin on the plane in case one of the kids clogged up - sometimes it worked, sometimes not. But you want to avoid ear problems if at all possible. Good luck!