What to Pack for an Amazon Expedition
Short, tested, and shorter than you expect.
Short, tested, and shorter than you expect.
Pack less than you think. Almost everyone overpacks for the Amazon, and in a canoe every extra bag is something you carry, keep dry, and move in and out of boats for a week.
The list below is what actually gets used on our expeditions. It is short on purpose. If something is not here, it is usually because we provide it, or because it will sit unused at the bottom of your duffel.
Start by taking five bulky things straight out of your bag. We supply, for every guest, on every expedition:
Between them, that is most of the weight and nearly all of the awkward shapes. You do not need waterproof hiking boots with ankle support; you will be in our rubber boots.
One soft duffel, plus one day pack. That is the rule, and we count it in bags rather than kilos. Space in the canoe is shared, and a soft bag squashes into the gaps a rigid one cannot.
Hard suitcases are genuinely impractical on the river — but if a suitcase is all you own, bring it and we will make it work. On private expeditions the limits are looser, because the boat is not shared.
On fabric: merino, linen, lightweight cotton and synthetics all dry well. Heavy cotton does not, and in this humidity a shirt that will not dry stays wet for days.
On the cash: bring small bills. Many Ecuadorian vendors cannot change a twenty, and a craft you wanted to buy from the person who made it is not worth losing over change.
This is the one item where we will not simply tell you what to buy, because there is a real trade-off and you should make the choice yourself.
DEET works considerably better. That is true, and we are not going to pretend otherwise to sound greener than we are.
But DEET has an impact on the rivers and lagoons — and you will be swimming in them. We hold strictly to no-impact practices out here, which is a large part of why the place still looks the way it does. Gentler products exist and they do not work as well.
So: we ask for biodegradable personal products across the board, we explain the trade-off, and we understand if you decide differently. We recommend no brands.
One thing worth knowing: mosquito pressure is wildly uneven here. Some areas have an enormous number of them; others have almost none. Anyone who tells you the Amazon is uniformly unbearable, or uniformly fine, has not spent much time in it.
Of any kind. Food in a bag or a tent attracts ants and a long list of other things you would rather not share a room with, and once they arrive they do not leave. All meals are provided, and if you have dietary needs, tell us before you travel and we will handle it.
Barely. The bag is much the same in high water and low, and it would be easy to invent a difference here to sound thorough. The honest version: it can rain in any month, so the rain jacket and the dry bag matter year-round, and the quick-dry clothing matters just as much either way.
If you want to understand what genuinely does change by season, that is in our guide to the best time to visit the Ecuadorian Amazon.
A budget dry bag. A funda quintalera from any hardware shop in Coca does the job for a couple of dollars. It is not elegant and it works.
Laundry. For a small extra, a community member will hand-wash your clothes. That is often the difference between packing for seven days and packing for three.
When you book, we send a full packing list tailored to your specific expedition and season, because a camping-based trip and a lodge-based one genuinely differ. Treat this page as the general version, and that list as yours.