A bus route, in the air, with no timetable board

What a circuit is

A small aircraft leaves a hub — Nairobi Wilson, Arusha, Kigali, Maun — in the morning, touches down at a sequence of airstrips, and returns in the afternoon. Your seat is a seat on that circuit rather than a flight booked for you.

The practical consequences are the ones that shape itineraries:

• You may land where you are not going. A forty-minute hop can include two intermediate stops. Normal, not an error.
• Circuits run in a direction. Moving against it can mean returning to the hub and going out again — half a day for a distance visible from the air.
• Not every pair of strips connects every day. Some legs run a few days a week, so one camp choice can fix which day you move.
• Departure times firm up close to the date. A time given at booking is indicative; the final one arrives days before, because the circuit is built around who is actually flying.

Why that changes a route

If two camps are on the same circuit, moving between them is a short hop and costs you a morning. If they are on different circuits, it is a hub connection and costs you most of a day.

On a map the two look identical. That gap — invisible to anyone planning from photographs — is the single commonest reason a draft itinerary comes back from a specialist rearranged.

Baggage: 15kg, and it must be soft

The weight limit is commonly around 15kg per person including hand luggage, and bags must be soft-sided because the hold is a curved space with no room for a rigid frame.

This is a weight-and-balance requirement, not a style note, and it is enforced at the strip. What makes it workable is that almost every camp does laundry daily and returns it the same evening. Pack for four days, not for fourteen.

If you need a hard case for the international legs, leave it in a city hotel store. Every hotel used for a safari transit night offers this and most do not charge for it.

Camera equipment

Photographers are the group most affected, and the usual answer is to buy an extra seat. It costs what a seat costs, it removes the argument entirely, and on a trip where the lenses are the point it is proportionate.

Tell whoever is planning at the enquiry stage rather than at the airstrip. It changes the quote, and it is much cheaper to change a quote than a booking.

Private charters

A private charter buys you the direct line, your own departure time and a higher baggage allowance. It costs several times a seat on a circuit.

It is worth it in three situations: a group of four or more, where the per-head cost converges on scheduled seats; a route with no good scheduled connection; and a day where the circuit would otherwise cost you a full game drive at both ends.

It is rarely worth it for two people moving between two strips on the same circuit, whatever the brochure implies.

The international legs

Long-haul arrivals matter more than people expect, because internal circuits are morning-weighted. An overnight flight landing at six in the morning connects to the same day’s circuit; one landing at four in the afternoon does not, and costs you a city night.

We will tell you which of your long-haul options avoids that night, which is often worth more than the fare difference between them.