The Packing Dilemma

Well, the time has come to decide what needs to be packed for our trip to South Africa! I’ve been keeping an eye on the weather in Cape Town on my weather app and I was seeing temperatures ranging from high 60’s to low 80’s. South Africa’s current season is winter, but it appears the summer weather definitely wants to hold on. With such a wide range in temperature I was definitely confused as to what to pack into my suitcase.

A friend have co-workers in Cape Town and offered to reach out to get a more personal opinion as to what is going on with the weather. The response she got back from her co-worker stated that right now they are in their winter and it was cold and that jackets and scarves would be needed for early morning and evening. She stated that we have to make sure we had warm clothes. Well, this confused me since looking at the current weather and extended weather forecast it appears the weather is staying in high 60’s low 70’s. So, with all of this information I decided the best solution is – layers, layers, layers!

I figured the best for tops would be sleeveless, short sleeve, ¾ length sleeve and sweaters for tops, jeans, leggings, and ankle length pants for the bottoms. I decided a light jacket, jean jacket and sweater shirt would be best for outerwear. I figured I could layer outwear if necessary and that I shouldn’t be too hot or too chilled.

Since I am guilty of being an over packer for every other trip I go on I decided the best way to handle this trip would be to pre-plan my outfits and to pack outfits rather than just packing clothes. I looked through the itinerary of the trip and tried to see what would be the best types of clothes to wear – for example, I figured the day we go on the winelands tour I will want to look a little ‘dressier’ that day and the day we do the peninsula tour I may be doing a little more active type of touring so leggings will probably be the best route to go. With this in mind, I started the outfit process……

Once I got through my Cape Town outfits it was time to move on to the safari outfits….oh boy, that was a little tougher for me.  Everything I have read about what to wear on safari’s said – no bright colors, no white, and no denim.  Welp, that threw out the majority of my ideas!  I wanted to be comfortable but still weather and activity appropriate so I thought the best outfits would be those with ‘hiking’ pants and layering tees and shirts.  I found some pants that you can also roll up into a shorter leg if it got warm out and another pair that was ankle length that seemed to be perfect.

Once I figured out the outfits I had to get them all in my bag!  This time around I decided to try and keep things a little more organized and contained in the bag so I decided to try packing cubes.  I found some reasonable packing cube sets on Amazon.  They are a good size and I was able to fit my pants (rolled) in the larger cube and the shirts (rolled) in a midsize cube.  It really worked out well since it allowed me to keep everything together and I feel like I won’t be going through everything each day looking for something to wear.  By having the clothing contained and the outfits pre-planned this will hopefully cut down on unnecessary planning and stressing while I am on vacation!