Winter to Summer - A Month in the Summer Hemisphere - South America and South Pacific - Getting Ready #1

With a month to go, we're making our final preparations for a month long trip...  First off, what are we going to need to pack? When you think about what you need for a month, what are the things you have to focus on?  Think about the "C's" Clothes (and Shoes), Consumables (Cosmetics and Medicines), and Connectivity (Communications and Electronics)

So what do you think about when you think about packing your Clothes and Shoes?  First - weather will drive what you have to wear in order to be comfortable where you're going.  Weather on land or your port calls is a little easier since there are tons of places to get weather forecasts and seasonal averages.  One site we like to use for our cruise weather is Cruise Outlook - https://cruiseoutlook.com/reports - if you put your cruise in here, you will get the weather reports from each of your port calls - the free version starts the actual temps 7 days before you reach each port - in the meantime, you can add each port into your favorite phone weather app to start checking things.,

While Cruise Outlook is good for weather in ports, when you are heading out on long ocean transits, getting temperatures out on the water can be challenging -- and when you are doing an ocean crossing, you need to know to properly pack.  The best free site we've found is Sailwx.info - http://www.sailwx.info/ - there is a lot of cool information gathered on this page but relevant to our current discussion, if you click on the Weather Observations tab on the far right, you can select the Air Temperature and get a world wide map with all the temps in Celsius - I haven't figured out how to change this setting so I just use a converter.  We have also used Sailwx.info to see about whether or not we might have rough weather or cancelled tenders -- the wave height and wind speed charts are quite good - and sometimes more timely than what the ship may be sharing with you.  We knew before they told us that we wouldn't be getting off the ship in the Azores since the wind and wave observations were nasty - anyway, good information contained therein...

So once you know what the weather's expected to be where you're going, you need to consider what you're doing and how you're getting there.  On this cruise, we already know that Oceania doesn't have designated "Formal Nights" so I won't need a tux (sports coat is good enough) nor will my honey need several formal gowns with matching shoes.  Based on where we're going ashore, we know we'll be hiking at altitude (9-11k feet) with temps between 40 and 65 F with some rain, and wading around in tropical waters in temps in the mid to upper 80's -- air temps across the South Pacific will be in high 60's and low 70's.  So we're going to need some layers and we're going to need some beach togs - quite a challenge...

Just to make it a wee bit better, we're doing some stuff ashore - pre and post cruise - that will have have us hauling bags around so unless you're bringing a porter with you, consider how big and how many when you lay your bags out -- this gives you an idea of how many of the clothes  (and shoes) you've figured out in the step above you can actually bring with you.  There is nothing more stressful than hauling numerous big bags around -- unless said numerous big bags don't actually make it to your destination after an international flight :(....  If you can go "carry-on only" you eliminate a ton of heartburn but sometimes, you just can't get everything you really do need into something you can legitimately squeeze into an overhead bin (without a rubber hammer that is).  This multi-mode, 30 day trip is an example of a "No way without a checked bag" trip unless you are a SEAL or Green Beret and carry everything in your rucksack -- oh, and can radio in for a parachute drop of fresh clothes after a couple of weeks...

Speaking of fresh clothes, one thing to consider and investigate for long trips is the availability of washing machines or reasonably priced laundry service.  Oceania Marina does have launderettes aboard for self service laundry - better yet, Oceania just instituted a free laundry service (3 bags for our cruise) -- we used this service on board Oceania Insignia and were so happy with how our laundry came back.

So with clothes and shoes in mind, now you have to consider your bags, how you are going to pack them, and how you are going to configure or arrange them for hauling from place to place.  In our case, we have several different sets of luggage gathered over the years - since we're each going to check a bag, this bag has to roll really well (two big wheel vs. four little wheels) over varied surfaces and it has to have a way to hook our carry-on onto in order to make point to point walks, we're grabbing our REI rolling duffles purchased originally for a three week safari trip to Africa  (2005) as our primary bags.  Our carry-ons will consist of a small retro Travel Pro roller (more on that in a minute), a hand carry Bric bag and Travel Pro bag, and a backpack.

Here's a picture of our planned luggage ensemble...

Looks like a bunch

These wheels are great and roll smoothly

Our choice of luggage is based on what we have to take and some of the restrictions we face along the way - specifically, in Peru, we are flying from Lima to Cusco and once we get to Cusco, are training from Cusco to Machu Picchu - the train has an 11lb luggage limit plus your personal bag (purse or backpack).  So modes of transportation are an important planning factor in what you take and how you book your travel.  In our case, we are flying Business Class from Miami to Lima using miles so by staying within our weight limit, our checked bags will fly free (and we won't throw our backs out).  But the checked bags are too heavy to make the train trip so we needed to bring a small roller so we'd have clothes in Cusco and Machu Picchu -- the big REI rollers will stay at our hotel in Lima while we take our 4 day Cusco/MP.  By staying in the same hotel in Lima, they are willing to hold onto our bigger bags while we traipse around the high country of Peru.  Another potentially sticky spot in our itinerary is our day/night in Moorea after disembarking from Oceania Marina -- in this case, we'll be walking from our cruise ship to the air terminal to catch a short flight from Tahiti to Moorea for our overwater, overnight stay at the Moorea Intercontinental.  We already know we can store a bag at the airport overnight so we'll pack light of the short flight and store everything else.

Other pre-trip considerations... 

We have a full up medical kit with anti-biotics, bandaids, travelers revenge pills, and new for this trip, a "Stop the Bleed" kit (tourniquet, and treated gauze bandages). We never have more than a hangnail or shaving nick but just in case, we're ready.

Plug adaptors on international travel are an important item to pack - and on Oceania - two plugs are US style and the other two are European round plugs - this time we will be able to use all four plugs.  A good site for determining what kind of plug adaptors or electrical transformers you'll need is: https://whatplug.info/from/usa/to/peru

If you're taking a cruise, finding your "Roll Call" can be a great way to meet your fellow cruisers and even coordinate shared shore excursions.  Cruise Critic is the place to find your roll call - here's a link to the roll call page:  https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=34  We needed four folks to reserve a snorkel trip -- so we posted that we were looking for another couple to do a snorkel trip and found them in two days flat.  Many cruisers are really experienced too - so you can get some really good information on the ship or your ports from your fellow cruisers.

Two more days to go - better get this one posted and start thinking about getting checked in for our flight to Lima...