I’ve blogged in the past about some trips that I’ve taken with my lovely wife.  This year, we’re planning two major and at least a couple of minor trips.  The major trips are another Mediterrainian cruise, and a safari in Africa.   We also have an out of town wedding, and we’ll be in Vermont some times.

The Mediterranean cruise is similar to the one I blogged about in 2015 (https://bassman-crusin.blogspot.com/).  Last time we traveled with our good friends Rob & Laura.   This time we’ll be traveling with Zelda & Matteo (don’t ask). The trip is not for a while yet, so I still have adequate time to obsess over planning and packing, and planning for packing.  Actually, I don’t expect any drama with the packing for this trip – I’ll pretty much just drag out the packing list from the last one, update it for new sneakers, etc., and be done.

The safari is a whole new ball of wax.  If you’ve never gone on a safari, or talked to someone who has gone on a safari, you may not be aware that there are a few very strict requirements.

The first is that all of your luggage must weigh 44 lbs. or less.  This includes your checked bag (singular) and any carry-on stuff you may bring.   Related to this, the checked bag apparently must be a soft-sided duffel-type bag with no wheels.  There are other guidelines around what you should or shouldn’t bring as well.  I’ll probably devote a few posts to this issue in the future, as this trip isn’t until much later.  So I have plenty of time to obsess (full disclosure: I started obsessing a couple of months ago when we agreed to make this trip).

I’ll talk a bit about our cruise planning in an upcoming post.