I’ve been leading trips into Africa for fourteen years, and I still learn something new on every single one.
So when I sat down to write you a tips email, I thought: who better to ask than someone who has lived it from the inside?
Erin has been on five of my trips. She drives the second vehicle, manages my social media, and is without question the reason the campfire gets silly at just the right moment.
I asked her what she’d tell a first-timer on a trip like Earth Awakenings.
Here’s what she said.
Bring the small luxury that you almost talked yourself out of.
Erin tried to be a hero on one of our early trips and left her hairdryer at home. She regretted it almost immediately. Then one of the other women pulled hers out, and within thirty seconds there was a queue.
You can get your hands dirty, sleep under canvas, wake up to hyenas, and still want to feel like yourself. Those things are not in conflict.
So pack the hairdryer. Or whatever small thing makes you feel good. You are not here to suffer; you are here to have the trip of a lifetime, and there is a difference.
Prepare yourself for coming home.
This one surprised me when Erin said it, and then it didn’t surprise me at all.
She described arriving back after two weeks on the road and not being able to bear the sound of the news on in the background. Too loud and too hard. Too far from the rhythm she’d been living in. The stillness of a private reserve, the same small group of faces every morning, waking with the sun, and then suddenly, home.
It takes a little time to acclimatise. The world will feel faster than you left it, and noisier, and a little less kind. That’s not a problem; it’s a sign that something real happened out there. Just know it’s coming, make a little room for it, and be gentle with yourself in those first few days back.
I thought that was the most honest thing anyone has ever said about what these trips do, and I’ve been trying to put it into words for years.
