@@Gribardson oooh good luck!!

@@Gribardson thanks for watching! No, I didn't take Diamox. About 50% of our group did, and about 50% didn't. You're right that it was probably worth mentioning in the video, but because I didn't have it on my list, it completely slipped my mind!

@@theworldwithsam makes sense!

Forgive us, we were very curious about the water options on the toilet as we do not have these where we are from! We cleaned up after ourselves and the hotel was left in perfect condition upon our departure, I can assure you!

Thank you

Of course, we stayed at The Gate Hotel Tokyo by HULIC.

Thank you for watching, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Thank you! Thanks for watching! :)

Thanks for watching! We went in March. Feel free to check out my other videos for the full lowdown of what the weather and the overall general experience was like climbing in that month!

The down jacket I used (the pink one in the video) was Dare2B!

@@Samlyonmusic Thanks again! Great video-

@@rajeevthapa5803 thank you for watching! Glad you enjoyed it!

Thank you, I'm glad you found it helpful! Are you planning on doing Kilimanjaro too?

@@theworldwithsam Oh Yes! I am. In late March this year. I am thinking Lemosho route being good for acclimatization and scenic. And Yes - Mt. Elbrus in around September this year. Though your video Covered most things, any special advice that you think of sharing.

@@6373abhi oh wow, that's amazing! Good luck on your adventures! If you haven't already, feel free to watch my other Kilimanjaro videos. We took the Rongai route as that is also one of the best for acclimatisation. I documented my entire trek if you feel like watching! I hope you have a fantastic time and make some brilliant memories!

@@theworldwithsam Yes. I have already watched those videos. You documented everything very well. Really helpful. Which company you went with. And what was the cost? If you can share.

@@6373abhi thank you for watching! So we used KE Adventure Travel, they were brilliant and I couldn't recommend them enough. I actually went with a charity so I didn't pay for my spot, but I *think* it was about £3000 per person (I think flights were also included in that)

Thank you, glad you found it helpful!

Thank you for watching, I'm glad you enjoyed it! We went with KE Adventure Travel, I highly recommend them, they were super helpful and we had a dedicated team member who was in full contact with us any time of the day right the way up to leaving!

Thank you, glad you enjoyed watching! I did, yes. Fortunately, I wasn't physically sick, but I felt very ill and suffered with bad headaches and feelings of faintness. I didn't take any altitude tablets, though!

Glad to be of help! Thank you for watching 🙂 oh amazing! I wish you all the best for your adventure!! Please come back and tell me what it was like!

Thank you! Yes, I took one 20,000mAh power bank with me and that kept my phone and both my cameras going for the whole duration of the trek! But, I did turn my phone off during the day when I wasn't using it. If you haven't already, check out my Kilimanjaro Packing Video, I explain everything I took with me on the trek in a good bit of depth (including the power bank!)

That's amazing, congratulations!! I really appreciate you taking the time to come back to my video and leave me this comment, that's absolutely made my day, thank you. The sunrise is spectacular, isn't it?! How did you find summit night? You feel the spirit of loved ones so much in that environment. And your mum experienced the whole thing through your eyes ❤️

Thanks for coming back so soon Sam. I won't lie, summit night was the hardest thing I've done and the hardest thing I'll ever do physically. I'm 66 and was diagnosed with leukemia a couple of years ago. I wasn't about to let that define me and am beating it. Every step was slow but I played every mind game in the book;counting steps, singing songs in my head, thinking about all the friends and family that had put their faith in me. The guides were worried that I was breathing hard but in truth I out of all my group never suffered any AMS at all. Not so much as a tiny headache so it was just hard breathing and needed lots of breathers. I told them to take it as slow as they could and I'd make it. Thankfully I did!, and when I say I saw lots of young guys being retired back down, it just spurred me on with my mum and my wife with me every step. The absolute relief when we reached Stella Point and I knew the rest of the way to Uhuru was just a slow but gradual plod. Then it was just that dusty descent with the heat building up and layers coming off. I got a cheer from my group when I was the last one back which was lovely. You're tips were so helpful and I'm recommending the packing as the most comprehensive out there. At least you can choose what to leave out or include with nothing left to chance. I've family friend who's going to plan this for her honeymoon so I'll be sure to point her in your direction as no other packing list mentions things like sanitary towels or thrush cream( which I did take in case of fungal infections sleeping in sweaty clothes etc). As I was born in Kenya, Tanzania will always have a special place in my heart and I can't wait to visit again. Thanks again. so many people made this possible including people like yourself with their selfless time and advice. All my love and best wishes to you. The world needs more people like you and porters and guides. xx@@theworldwithsam

@@eddiealexander5276 oh my goodness! Wow, that's an even more amazing achievement, well done! Yes, the slower you do it, the better. There were points where we were taking 3 steps at a time and then pausing to catch our breath for a minute before taking another 3 steps. But, taking it at the right pace for your body is SO important. You did amazingly, you should be so proud! Thank you so much for your feedback about my video series, I feel genuinely delighted that it's helped someone out so much. I wanted to try and capture the entire experience as raw and real as possible, and being that I also watched hundreds of packing videos before I went, I also wanted to try and create a very thorough, informative video myself. I'm so glad you've found the videos helpful, and are happy to recommend them to others, that's very much appreciated!

Thanks sam, best of luck for future travels and i look forward to seeing more vids over the years xx I may get my friend Charlotte to contact you re tips and advice if thas ok? xx @@theworldwithsam

Thank you for watching, glad you enjoyed it!

That means a lot! Thank you so much for watching my series, I'm so glad you found it so helpful! Sorry to hear about your sister, if you do the same route we did, you should definitely build her a little rock heart too, that would be a lovely way to go or her and give her her own place on the mountain! You'll absolutely smash it, good luck with your climb, I'd love to know how you found it!

Thank you for watching, I'm glad you enjoyed them! We used KE Adventure as our tour operator, highly recommend!

I didn't take Diamox personally but a few members of our group did and I think it did help with their altitude sickness!

@@theworldwithsam oh wow. You're a trooper! Thanks for the quick reply! Your videos have been very helpful.

@@goagray5 thank you for watching, I'm glad they've been useful for you!

Thanks for following my journey! We booked our trip through KE Adventure, back in England. Have a look at their website, and feel free to email them with any questions, we were assigned a travel advisor and that was really helpful as we had one friendly point of contact for everything!

Thank you so much, I truly appreciate that!! I'm so glad you enjoyed watching!

I won't sugarcoat it, hardest thing I've ever done, haha! Half of our group took altitude sickness tablets and half didn't, but I think we all felt about the same on the summit night; headaches, faintness, sickness, weakness. But we all made it! It certainly takes will power, but your guides will be brilliant and do all they can to help you. It's worth every tear once you make it to the top!!

Thank you for watching!

Amazing, well done! How did you find it? Thanks for watching, I'm glad you enjoyed it! I wanted to try and capture the full real experience of the trek, and now whenever I watch this back, I feel like it takes me straight back on that whole journey again, which I love! Amazing memories!

Thank you! Ooh good luck with your adventure!

You absolutely can! One of my friends took her own sleeping bag for this trip! (If you watch my Kili videos, it's the other girl who features quite heavily throughout the video, I think we may even talk about our sleeping bags at one point!) One perk of taking your own is that you can see exactly how much space you have in your duffel bag WITH your sleeping bag in it. I didn't have my own sleeping bag so chose to hire one upon arrival and completely didn't think about how big it was going to be so struggled to fit it in my duffel bag. Hope this helps!

It's a Tuffbag! The one I used is a 90L Tuffbag Wastewater Duffel, at the moment they're averaging around £65 here in the UK.

I got all mine off of Amazon! I think I spent about £20 in total for all of mine.

Amazing, you'll love it!

Thank you for watching, I'm glad you enjoyed it and found it useful! You should definitely do the trip, it's such a brilliant experience!

This is EXACTLY what I was aiming for when I made it, so thank you! I wanted to capture the true essence of the trip and cover as much detail of the reality of it as possible! I, too, watched soooo many videos before I went on my trip and whilst they were all great, they didn't tell me anything about what actual life on the mountain would be like, e.g. the terrain, the food, the difficulties, etc. so I really wanted to create something that did exactly that in hopes that others might find it valuable. I'm so glad you enjoyed watching this video, be sure to watch the second part and the packing list video too if you haven't already! And good luck for your trip! :)

@@theworldwithsam Hey Sam. We summitted on Christmas Day 2022!! Your video was a huge help, just thought I’d mention one thing. On your way down from the summit you have a clip where you’re walking alone. This was never allowed for us as walking alone is dangerous. If anyone had to puke, go toilet, get tired, etc one of the many guides would peel off and shadow us. Even on the chaotic descent. Outside of camp we were not allowed to be alone. Much love and thanks again!!!! ❤️

@@SharpTooth302 oh wow, a Christmas day summit! Congratulations for making it, what a brilliant achievement! I'm so glad you found my video helpful :) Yes that's a very good point. I think there is one point in my video, as we're walking towards our last camp where I have a moment "alone", but the guides were never far away from us at all times. I think I said that they're "miles away" but that's more just a phrase in passing, they were only just around the corner and would have been with me immediately should I have needed to stop for any reason. But yes, a brilliant point to make 👍

Glad you found it helpful, thank you for watching!

The maximum weight you're allowed in your duffel bag is 20kg, the porters aren't allowed to carry anything heavier than this. Mine came in a fair bit less than 20kg though actually. But, one thing to consider when packing is if you are hiring a sleeping bag upon arrival, make sure you cater for this additional weight when packing at home, try pack less than 20kg if you can.

Good question! I think I went for the next size up, but I could've easily worn one of the right fit too. Most times that I wore my fleece, I only had a single layer underneath so the size of the fleece didn't need to cater for a lot of thick layers beneath it. I did wear it on summit night with a few layers of thermals underneath, but due to the thermal layers being of quite thin fabric, even when I did wear lots of layers, the fleece still never felt like it was tight. Your fleece will usually always be a mid-layer so personally I don't think size (or over-size!) is of too much importance as on your daily walks it will just be used to take the chill off if there's a cool wind, and on summit night it will be sandwiched between other thick coat layers so you won't be losing much heat through it anyway. I'd say best to go too big than too small as too small will allow for much less movability and you want as much freedom and comfort as possible. If you find that you get cold, then just change your fleece for your down jacket/coat!

Absolutely do it!!! I'd love to go back and do it again, it was such an incredible experience!

Thank you so much, that's exactly what I was aiming to achieve so I really appreciate that!

Glad I could help! Thank you very much for watching!

Thank you!

I hadn't done any hiking at all prior to booking the trip! I started using a treadmill on a steep incline and also a stairs climber, aiming to complete about 20-30 minutes on each machine on the hardest setting, though it took a lot of building up to this! Our group began doing hikes around Snowdonia, of varying difficulty, sometimes on a weekly basis, sometimes fortnightly, sometimes less. The first few hikes I found quite difficult and exhausting, but I definitely noticed a huge change in my fitness as I carried on with the training. The hiking on Kilimanjaro, for the most part, isn't difficult. It isn't particularly steep, it's more that you need stamina as you're walking for a few hours per day. None of our group struggled at all with the daily Kili walks as you have plenty of stops, usually every hour or so, but summit night admittedly was very difficult as that is very steep and due to the lesser oxygen, your body finds climbing much tougher. You'll be walking up an almost vertical incline for about 5-8 hours. It's definitely do-able, just needs some good will power!!

@@theworldwithsam really appreciate your help. I hike fairly often once or twice a week in the Appalachians but don't have exposure to the extreme altitude and Kilimanjaro seems like a good place to start since it doesn't require alpine skills.

@@jabawaki365 if you're used to hiking then you'll be fine with the daily hikes up Kili! Some of our group took altitude sickness tablets, some of them found the summit easier, some of them still found it difficult, so I can't exactly say whether I recommend the medication or not. In terms of impact that the altitude had on me as I was climbing, it wasn't particularly unbearable, just rather unpleasant. I had a bad headache, felt sick, and also felt quite faint at times, but that could've also been influenced by the lack of sleep, general fatigue from the trekking, or even the change in diet. Oddly, once I reached the summit and felt the euphoria of making it to the top, my symptoms almost magically faded away so I think it's mostly a mind-over-matter situation!

The sleeping bags we hired on the mountain did come with compression sacks, but I must admit it was very fiddly trying to get the sleeping bag to fit back into it every morning! I think there were a couple of occasions (only when we had shorter walks) where I just left mine out of the compression sack for the sake of ease, but overall I would recommend using one as its an extra protective layer for your sleeping bag (no one wants to get in a wet sleeping bag!), and it also does help to keep it as compact as possible in your duffle bag.

Thank you for watching! We used KE Adventure Travel. Our trip guide was absolutely brilliant, very experienced and very knowledgeable, he'd been KE's tour guide for the mountain for decades and had a very high summit success rate for his groups which was reassuring! We took the Rongai route, it's a slightly longer route but has the best summit success rate due to its acclimatisation rest days.

@@theworldwithsam Great my friend.

Oh thank you for watching, I'm so glad they've helped! Do let me know if you have any more questions, I'd be happy to offer any more advice where I can :) Good luck on your trek, I wish I could join you for a second go!

That’s very kind of you Sam! Thank you!

How was your trip? I'm going in a few months!

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it! In all honesty, everyone in our group just embraced the wildness of the bathroom trips and we all squatted behind bushes/rocks/whatever. If you think you'd feel more comfortable using a she wee then by all means do, it's important that you do what is comfortable for you. There aren't many insects or irritating plants so you should be perfectly fine squatting. You very soon adjust to the going to the toilet in nature and it only takes a day or two before you forget that it's actually not the norm to go behind a bush! We had the portable loos at each camp (which I highly recommend adding onto your booking if you haven't already as the camp toilets aren't very pleasant!), but for the most part, you're only walking for a few hours a day so you could even complete a full walk without needing to do a "wild wee". Hope this helps!

Thank you, really appreciate that! Oh wow. Yes, it's definitely an emotional experience. One stand out moment for me was when we reached the summit and one of our guides got down on his knees and prayed to the sky. That set a few of us off crying! Our group made it up at slightly staggered times too, but thankfully not too far apart so we could all celebrate at the top together, which was nice. I think 50% of our group cried on the way up. A couple of the porters stayed behind with me and another girl as were took our time going back down due to feeling ill/uneasy. The whole time they were positive as anything, encouraging us but not pressuring us, they truly were the perfect guides.

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed watching! Oh, you definitely should, it's such an amazing experience!

What an amazing reason to climb! I'm sure the charity and nurses will be incredibly grateful. I'm so sorry to hear about your mum, maybe take a photo or a belonging of hers up to the mountain with you, that's what I did with my dad. It's such an incredible experience, definitely a challenge at times, but absolutely fantastic, you'll love it! Good luck, and thanks for watching! :)

@@theworldwithsam That's what brought it all back to me. I lost my dad years ago, I miss him every day but my mum has been a rock for years after. Looking after my kids( her grandchildren) and she at least lived to see her great grand daughter. Thanks for the idea of taking something of hers up there👏We were both born in Kenya so it will be all the more poignant. She spoke swahili fluently and even in her last few weeks would come out some hilarious stuff PS who did you travel with? And all the best on your future adventures, I shall now keep a lookout 😃

@@eddiealexander5276 gosh, sorry to hear. I can't imagine losing my mum now that I've lost dad. It just strengthens your relationship so much, doesn't it? I had my dad's ashes made into a ring and I wore that up the mountain. Ooh, I'd love to spend more time in Tanzania/Kenya, I simply adored the way of life. I also love the sound of Swahili, it sounds so musical! We travelled with KE Adventure. They were brilliant, very informative and responsive, and our team of guides were so friendly and kind, and were also able to answer all of the questions we had about the mountain as we climbed. Our guide was called Onex. If you do go with KE, I recommend asking for Onex to be your guide, he was so lovely!