World Wildlife Fund WWF Travel Blog

April 22 marks an important day--when the public, corporations and government demonstrate their commitment to nature and future generations. As travelers who value the places you visit, you have opportunities to experience well-managed, pristine environments, and those in need of more TLC.

This week, actor and World Wildlife Fund Board Member Leonardo DiCaprio helped launch WWF’s “Hands Off My Parts” initiative. The initiative represents a week-long effort tied to WWF’s Stop Wildlife Crime campaign to raise awareness and mobilize support to end the illegal trade of wildlife.

As a traveler, you have tremendous power to decrease the demand for illegal products by making informed purchases. Your purchases abroad and at home have a profound impact on wildlife.

I’d jump at any opportunity to explore a rain forest. I find them to be among the most fascinating environments to explore. Having toured a few, I’ve gotten a good grasp on which items will always show up in my luggage.

You’re in the desert. It’s hot. Who wants to make it worse by toting around an overly heavy, busting-at-the-seams daypack?

You just arrived in India, where you’re excited to search for the endangered Bengal tigers. But you soon realize your grogginess and inability to sleep are making early morning safari drives more of a chore than a dream come true.

Running a safari camp can’t be easy. In fact, it may be just about the most difficult hospitality gig on the planet. In addition to all of the nuances of running any high-quality accommodation, you have to do it off-the-grid, in a very remote and hard-to-access location, within a wildlife reserve or park, with highly specialized on-site staff, while running a successful safari-drive business.

The priority when packing for an expedition to a cold-weather destination is to load up on outerwear. Waterproof jackets and pants aren’t enough; the key to staying warm enough in a cold weather destination is in the accessories.

Here are my picks for the top items to pack for an Arctic expedition—to keep warm and keep you and your electronics properly functioning:

Boots. The No. 1 question we often hear from travelers heading to the Arctic: Do I really need to bring rubber boots? Emphatically and without question, yes! If you forget to bring everything else with you, rubber boots that go at least mid-calf are the single-most important item to pack.

When you leave the ship and go ashore via Zodiac landing craft, you will have to step into icy-cold water at the shoreline. Sometimes the water level is higher than your ankle, so you’ll want taller boots. And oftentimes I hiked in those same boots—some travelers opted to change into their hiking shoes, but I didn’t want to tote the extra items—so make sure yours are comfortable.

Still not convinced? Then just image the fun I would have had in short shoes after inadvertently stepping in a rather deep pile of bull walrus dung at Poolepynten on Svalbard.

Extra gloves. I brought two extra pair. Even waterproof gloves seem to get wet, and no matter how hard you try to keep them dry, they’ll likely get wet during the Zodiac rides.

Sunglasses straps. If you’re prone to lose sunglasses (as I am—I always bring an extra pair), attach a strap to them. I remember one afternoon when we were on deck in Alaska’s Inside Passage, a few whales were spotted offshore. I whipped off my sunglasses to look through my binoculars, not even giving a second thought as to where the glasses went. I figured it out quickly—when something under my boot crunched (yes, making me 0 for 2 for stepping on things I shouldn’t have).

Hand and foot warmers. After an hour-long hike on the soft tundra, followed by some time waiting on the rocky shoreline for our Zodiac commutes back to the ship, my extremities started to feel icy. I tore open a few eco-friendly hand warmers and popped them into my boots and gloves. They made the late-afternoon much more bearable.

Energy bars. Shivering burns calories. So, if you’re a light eater, you could find yourself a little hungry in between meals. Stashing an energy bar or some trail mix in a pocket is a good tide-over snack.

Always-charged camera batteries. Make sure to recharge batteries each evening before bed, or bring extra batteries that will last for the duration of your trip. Some batteries lose juice quicker in cold environments.

Go on an Arctic adventure with WWF.

Planning an African safari? You’ll no doubt be consulting detailed packing lists that advise you to bring various essentials such as binoculars, mosquito repellent with DEET, khaki-colored clothing to blend in with the bush and a headlamp for nighttime reading.

Natural Habitat Adventures blogger Wendy Worral Redal recently returned from a safari in Botswana, and discovered that there were a number of things she brought, or wish she’d brought, that enhanced her experience and comfort, though they don’t often appear on most packing lists. Here are 10 items she recommends:

1. Lightweight down jacket or sweater with stuff sack
While many safari destinations in Africa can be blazing hot during the day, nights are often cool, if not downright cold. And during the winter dry season in more southerly climes such as Botswana and South Africa, nighttime temperatures may dip to freezing, making for very chilly morning game drives. I wore mine till the sun rose well into the sky, then stuffed it away into a small ball in my day pack.

2. Crushable safari hat with cord
A good safari hat is high on any packing list (as opposed to a baseball cap that doesn’t sufficiently cover one’s neck and ears). However, make it a hat that you can smash into your luggage as well as anchor onto your head. A cord ensures that your hat stays put when you’re driving at higher speeds in an open-sided safari vehicle with the wind whipping. If your hat isn’t crushable, you risk looking as nerdy my husband did, with a warped brim and one side of his hat perpetually flipped up while the other lay flat.

3. Clothes you can leave behind
Packing light is important when you’re flying in light aircraft and moving between camps. One way to free up space as you go and leave room for souvenirs is to pack clothing you can leave with locals. In poorer countries like Tanzania and Zambia, our hand-me-downs are most welcome. And in more prosperous parts of Africa such as Botswana and South Africa, non-profit organizations distribute donations to communities in need. We left some long-sleeved shirts, khaki trousers and fleece pullovers with our Botswanan guide who offered to donate them for us in Maun, at the end of our trip.

4. Spare pair of sunglasses
Sunglasses can take a beating on safari. As light and shadows constantly change, sunglasses come on and off throughout the day. It’s easy to lose them, sit on them in the 4 X 4, or crunch them underfoot in camp. They’re not easy to come by in much of Africa, even in towns, so bring a back-up pair just in case—you would not want to be without them.

5. Extra contact lenses and eye drops
If you suffer from dry eyes like I do, take heed! I wear daily disposables and packed a pair for each day, plus a couple of spares. But I could easily have gone through two pairs a day, as parched as my eyes felt during our sometimes windy and dusty game drives. At the edge of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana the relative humidity in June was just five percent, and my eyes were perpetually uncomfortable. I brought a tiny bottle of moisture drops that I parsed out carefully to make it last, but I wish I’d taken two or three bottles along.

6. Wet Wipes
I brought a small travel pack of 10 but wished I’d had three or four times that amount. These come in handy for everything, from a quick hand wash (buy the anti-bacterial kind) to a face cleanse on the fly on a dusty track, to impromptu TP if you’re caught heeding nature’s call in the bush.

7. Plastic Zip-Loc bag for journal & ballpoint pen
I learned the importance of this the hard way on a previous trip, after my tattered travel journal, containing handwritten logs of several epic trips, got damp. The pages curled, but worse, the ink ran and all my memories blurred into an illegible smear on half the pages. Most importantly, write with a ballpoint rather than a rolling ball or felt pen, and whenever your journal is not in use, secure it in a Zip-Loc bag, safe from the elements.

8. Extra camera batteries and memory cards
Take at least one spare battery and more memory capacity than you think you will possibly need. We inadvertently dropped a camera battery in the sand in camp one night and could not find it the next day. Thankfully we had an extra, or we’d have missed photos of five lions around our Land Rover that morning, and a leopard dining on its impala kill high up in an acacia tree. I was also glad that we’d purchased a couple of large 8-gig memory cards, since I shot more video than I expected (picture elephant herds running through a water hole!), which takes up a lot of space. And even though I brought my laptop along on which to download photos, I was reluctant to erase my memory cards in case anything happened to my computer. As cheap as memory cards have become these days, it makes sense to bring plenty.

9. Consider taking a Polaroid camera
Yep, even in this digital age, Polaroid is still around, and there’s no better place than Africa to have one. I wish I had had one, so I could have left photos with the many people we met. This camera lets you delight camp staff, villagers, handcraft artisans and especially children, who are utterly enchanted to see their own image in a photo. As it was, I could only show them the playback screen on my digital camera; how wonderful it would have been to leave them with their very own photo. Cameras are hard to come by in many part of Africa and out of financial reach for most people—and even for those who own cameras, such as our guide, making prints can be a challenge. You’ll thrill people with the simple gift of pictures.

10. Postcards from home
While your focus on safari is wildlife, getting to know Africa’s people is equally a highlight. Postcards are a great conversation starter. Share pictures of your hometown, natural attractions nearby or wild animals native to your part of the world. I brought shots of snowcapped peaks in Rocky Mountain National Park, black bears, mountain goats and the University of Colorado where I have taught classes for many years. In each case, my new friends were fascinated to get a visual sense of where I was from, and especially to do some comparing of wildlife across continents.

Travel to Africa with WWF.

© Natural Habitat Adventures. Reprinted with permission.