Luggage Rules for Private Flying Safaris in Kenya

The 15 kg rule, and why the bag matters more than the weight

Almost every safari in Kenya that involves more than one region involves a light aircraft — a Cessna Caravan or similar, nine to twelve seats, flying between grass and murram strips. The standing allowance on that circuit is 15 kg per person including hand luggage, and it is quoted in kilograms for a reason: the pilot is doing an arithmetic problem before every departure.

The part people underestimate is the shape, not the weight. Baggage holds on these aircraft are long, shallow and curved to the fuselage, reached through a door narrower than a carry-on case. A soft holdall folds into that space. A hard shell, however light, does not — and a wheeled case with a telescopic handle is mostly frame, so you are spending your allowance on the bag rather than on what is inside it. As a planning figure, a duffel of roughly 60 x 35 x 30 cm is right.

What to look for, if you are buying one: no wheels and no telescopic handle, an unstructured base rather than a moulded one, a full-length zip so you can pack it flat, a shoulder strap for the walk from the aircraft, and a water-resistant outer for the drive in an open vehicle when the rain arrives sideways. Sixty to eighty litres is ample. Packing cubes are worth their small weight because they keep the bag squashable, which is the property that actually matters when the hold is being loaded. Leave the padlock accessible — bags are sometimes weighed and occasionally opened at the strip.

Limits vary by operator and by aircraft, and they are set by the people flying you rather than by us. We confirm the exact figure for each of your legs when the flights are booked, and we tell you before you pack rather than at the airstrip. If your kit list is not going to fly, that is a conversation to have in your kitchen. The wider picture of how the flying works is on private flying safaris and, operationally, on private aviation.

What actually fits in 15 kg

More than most people expect, once the suitcase itself stops eating the allowance. Camps launder daily, so you are packing for four or five days, not for the whole trip.

Season shifts the balance more than anything else: the short rains want a proper shell and a second pair of trousers, the dry months want less. The month-by-month seasons guide is the place to check before you build the list, and the packing guide goes item by item.

Medication is the one category not to economise on. Keep it in the cabin bag rather than the hold, in its original labelled packaging, in quantities that cover the whole trip with a margin — bush camps are hours from a pharmacy, and a bag that goes astray on a long-haul connection should never be the reason a prescription is missed. If anything you carry is a controlled drug, travel with the prescribing letter. What happens if something goes genuinely wrong is a separate subject, covered in medical evacuation and insurance.

Why the limit is physics, not policy

This is the section that changes how the rule feels. An aircraft has a maximum take-off weight, and everything competes for it: passengers, bags, and fuel. Add fuel and you subtract payload. That is fixed arithmetic, and no amount of goodwill alters it.

Then altitude and heat make it worse. Air thins as it warms and as you climb, so an aircraft leaving a strip at 1,700 metres on a hot afternoon needs more runway and can lift less than the same aircraft at the coast at dawn. Kenya’s best country is high country — the strips serving Laikipia sit well above the Mara’s — which is precisely why the numbers are conservative and why early departures are the norm rather than an inconvenience.

Operators also ask for actual passenger weights before departure. It is not curiosity and it is not a formality: it feeds the weight-and-balance calculation that determines how the aircraft is loaded and whether it flies. Answer it accurately, and expect to be asked again at the strip.

One more variable that surprises people: on the scheduled bush network a single aircraft often serves several camps in sequence, so the load is calculated for the whole circuit rather than for your leg alone. A full aircraft with four parties aboard has less room for one party’s extra bag than the same aircraft flying you alone — which is another way of saying that the allowance is not a judgement about your packing. It is the aircraft’s arithmetic, and it changes with the day.

Charter or scheduled: what can be negotiated

On a scheduled bush flight the allowance is a published rule and there is nothing to discuss at the door. On a private charter you are buying the whole aircraft, so the trade-offs become yours to make: fewer passengers means more baggage, a shorter leg means less fuel and therefore more payload, and a larger aircraft can simply be chartered instead.

What does not change is the hold. Even on a chartered Caravan the door and the shape of the space still refuse hard cases. On a jet the constraint inverts — volume matters more than weight, hard cases are welcome, and the limit becomes which airports the aircraft can use; that comparison sits on private jet safaris. Helicopters are the tightest of all, and baggage is planned to the kilogram: see helicopter safaris.

How the charter market actually works, including who you are flying with and what a whole-aircraft booking costs you in flexibility, is set out in the guide to private charter flights in Kenya. Every way we move people between camps is listed on the safaris hub.

Awkward items are usually solvable with notice and rarely solvable without it. Golf clubs, a wheelchair or mobility aid, a musical instrument, a travel cot, medical equipment that must stay upright — each has an answer, and the answer is sometimes a different aircraft or an extra seat. Families should also count the pushchair and the car seats, which we can often source in Kenya instead so they never fly at all.

Camera kit, and when to buy a seat for it

Serious camera equipment is the most common reason a party goes over, and it has a simple solution: buy a seat for it. On both charters and scheduled bush flights an additional seat can be purchased for kit, which gives you a defined weight allocation and somewhere secure to put a long lens rather than wedging it into a hold.

Practical notes from the strip. Long lenses travel in a padded soft bag rather than a rigid case. Bodies, cards and batteries stay with you in the cabin. Tripods rarely earn their weight in a vehicle — a bean bag over the door frame is steadier and weighs nothing when empty, and most good camps supply them. If photography is the point of the trip rather than a souvenir of it, the vehicle matters more than the lens: photographic safaris explains how those are set up.

Batteries, power banks and drones

Lithium batteries and power banks must travel in the cabin, never in checked or hold baggage, and spares need their terminals protected against short circuits. Watt-hour limits apply, and rules on carrying and charging power banks in flight have tightened across the industry. IATA publishes clear passenger guidance on this that is worth two minutes before you pack: IATA — travelling safely with lithium batteries.

Camps run on generators or solar with set charging hours, so a power bank is genuinely useful; just carry it on. Drones are a separate matter entirely — Kenya requires registration, a remote pilot licence and prior authorisation, with a temporary import permit obtained before you arrive, and parks and reserves add their own approvals on top. A drone brought hopefully in hand luggage is liable to be held at the airport.

What Kenya will not let you bring in

Plastic carrier bags. Kenya banned the manufacture, import and use of plastic carrier and flat bags in 2017, and the ban is enforced. Pack in fabric or mesh cubes rather than plastic. One detail catches travellers out: duty-free bags are treated as outside Kenyan territory, so a bag picked up at your departure airport must be left at the point of entry rather than carried through. The authority’s own page sets out the position: NEMA — ban on plastic carrier bags.

Camouflage clothing. Military-pattern clothing is reserved for the armed forces in Kenya and is not something for a civilian to wear or pack, children included. Neutral khaki, olive and sand are what you want anyway.

Regulations and permits change. We check the current position for your dates rather than assuming last season’s answer still holds, and we would rather flag an uncertainty than let you discover it at immigration.

Laundry, and what the camps already supply

This is the fact that makes the allowance workable, and it is the one first-time guests most often do not believe. Camps collect laundry in the morning and return it the same evening or the following morning, and at the properties we use it is generally included rather than itemised. Packing for five days and washing twice is entirely normal.

Two caveats. In the wet season things dry slowly, so a spare set matters more than in the dry months. And some camps do not launder underwear as a matter of custom, providing soap flakes in the tent instead — not an oversight, and easily handled if you are expecting it.

The other half of the allowance problem is packing things that are already waiting for you. At the standard of camp we work with, you can generally expect insect repellent, sunscreen, a torch, a hot water bottle at altitude, umbrellas or ponchos, blankets and hot drinks on early drives, a well-stocked first aid kit, laundry soap, universal adapters and charging points in the tent, and bean bags in the vehicles for camera support. Several camps also keep a small store of warm jackets and hats for guests who underestimated a Laikipia dawn.

What is not supplied, and what we would always bring: binoculars, prescription medication, a spare pair of glasses or contact lenses, camera equipment and enough cards and batteries, and a properly broken-in pair of shoes. We send a camp-specific list once the itinerary is fixed, because it varies more than the brochures suggest — a mobile camp on a private conservancy carries less than a permanent lodge, and that is usually the point of it.

The Nairobi stash, and the coast leg

Nothing you cannot fly with has to travel. The city clothes, the hard suitcase, the coat you needed in London and the second camera body all stay in Nairobi and rejoin you on the way home. Hotels and ground handlers store luggage as a matter of routine, and we arrange the hand-back to match your outbound flight.

If the trip ends at the coast, the rules loosen. Those legs are often flown by larger aircraft into proper airports rather than bush strips, so a hard case can meet you there instead of waiting in Nairobi, and the dusty bush kit can go home from the coast rather than travelling on. It is worth deciding this early, because it determines where your stored luggage needs to be on which morning — a small piece of planning that quietly removes a whole day of low-grade worry at the end of a holiday.

It is worth building the day around this rather than treating it as an afterthought, particularly if you are connecting between the international airport and Wilson on the same morning — the sequencing is covered in the JKIA to Wilson transfer guide.

Before you fly: a checklist

None of this is difficult. It is simply unfamiliar, and it is far easier to resolve six weeks out than on the apron at Wilson with a bag that will not fit. Tell us what you intend to bring when we are still shaping the itinerary and we will build the flying around it — begin an enquiry.