When considering how to pack your food for a camping safari, you spent a lot of time planning your menu, and grocery shopping, so it deserves to be packed with a dash of simplistic greatness. You probably got very excited, went a little wild and came back with a mountain of products. When you’re travelling between destinations you’ll want to make food and snacks easily accessible. All you really need to do is get organised.

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Tupperware

The best way to organise for your African safari trip is to use plastic storage boxes or tupperware. Tupperware is a really simply way to store food that is easily accessible and hassle-free when travelling on the road. Perfect for a snack time nibble between destinations.

Ziploc and label

A great way to organise the main meals you’ll be devouring on Africa safari tours is to place the ingredients in small ziploc bags and then group them together in one large ziploc bag, and pop that ziploc bag into one large tupperware. So you’ll take all the food that you’re going to prepare for meal number 1, put it in a large bag and label it, then pop it in the tupperware. Then when your lion sized hunger comes knocking (as it does on an adventurous African safari trip), all you have to do is go to your large tupperware storage and take out bag number 1 and inside is everything that you’ll need to easily prepare the meal.

Reduce packaging

If you’re on a camping safari, you’re going to have to carry your food. For this reason you’ll want to get rid of some of the bulky, unnecessary packaging placed around food products. Packaging takes up so much space and you don’t want to be lugging double your load. Also, it’s a great way to reduce trash when camping. Solution? Remove the packaging, take what you need, stick it in a ziploc bag, and Hey Presto, problem solved.

Ziploc bags are great for organisation, they’re waterproof and great for storage.

If you’re keen to take something like macaroni and cheese out of its box, remember to rip the instructions off the packaging and place it in the ziploc bag with the ingredients. Macaroni and cheese can easily become macaroni and glue if you’re not following specific box directions.

Everything is now neatly packed, labelled and ready for your camping adventure.

Campfire cooking

Simple, pre-packaged meals are a great idea and simple to cook. For example, a pre-packaged Indian meal would just need you to cook up some minute rice, drop the pre-packed meal into boiling water to heat it up, and in about three minutes you have yourself a delicious meal over the fire. When neighbouring campers see you eating that meal, they’ll think you spent hours slaving over hot coals to prepare such a fragrant dish. All part of clever camping practices. Although, nothing beats a delicious potjie made from scratch.

Spend some time doing your research and shopping. You know what you like to eat, but remember that cooking over a stove and cooking over a campfire is very different. Go for simple camping meals with easy camping recipes and no doubt, your culinary campfire experience in the bush will be a lot more enjoyable and a lot less hassle. Trust me.

Food preparation

Now that you’ve organised and labelled the dung out of your food stores, you’ll need to pack the right pots and utensils for campfire cooking. Very important! If you’re going to go the whole hog and make a potjie from scratch, then you’re going to need to remember to pack a good quality potjie pot. Whereas for simple camping fire cooking you’ll simply need a few good pots to boil water, reheat food or mix up the ingredients of your mac and cheese. Utensils, utensils, utensils. That fork isn’t going to get you very far with that delicious tin of soup you’ve got camping in your tupperware. You best pack a can opener too. Half the work is knowing what to pack when camping.

Washing up

The next step is washing up. Make sure you have soap and a bucket if there isn’t a wash up sink available at the spot you’re going to be camping at.

Now you’re all set to pack food for an organised trip, now that you’ve learned how to pack food for a camping safari. All you have to do is pick your camping safari in Africa.

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Tags: camping safari, how to pack, What To Pack