Carry-On Chronicles: The Weird Things South Africans Travel With

If you really want to understand a nation, don’t study its history books — peek inside its carry-on luggage. Airports, bus depots, and train stations are like miniature reality shows, and South Africans always bring a special kind of drama to the game. While the rest of the world is fussing about neck pillows, noise-cancelling headphones, and sleek little toiletry bags, we’re out here squeezing boerewors into Tupperware and stuffing camping chairs into backpacks like it’s an Olympic sport.

Traveling in Mzansi isn’t just about getting from A to B — it’s about what you take along for the ride. And honestly, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Let’s start with the obvious: food. No South African trip is complete without snacks, and I don’t mean a packet of chips. I mean biltong. Biltong is practically a currency at this point — it can buy you goodwill from a seatmate on a long bus trip or silence a crying toddler faster than a Peppa Pig episode.

Then there’s the Tupperware brigade. Why buy a soggy sandwich at a petrol station when you can whip out a perfectly packed bunny chow or leftover braai chops wrapped in foil? Sure, it might leak a little and the smell of curry might follow you onto the plane, but that’s the price of culinary loyalty.

And let’s not forget the Ouma rusks. No one knows how they fit a 2kg bucket into their hand luggage, but there it is, rattling around the overhead compartment like a family heirloom.

Long trips are boring, but South Africans don’t do boring. Somewhere in every carry-on, there’s a battered deck of cards — sometimes missing the seven of hearts, but no one cares. Uno, dominos, and 30-year-old Monopoly sets have turned overnight bus rides into full-blown tournaments.

Then you’ve got the portable speaker crew. One guy always decides the whole bus needs to hear his amapiano playlist, and somehow, no one argues because, well, it slaps. Occasionally, someone takes it further with a vuvuzela tucked in the bag “just in case” a spontaneous victory celebration breaks out.

Yes, we may annoy the quiet travellers, but we do keep things lively.

Every group has that person who insists on travelling with half their house. These are the sentimentalists, the people who don’t trust hotels, buses, or anyone else to provide the right kind of comfort.

They’ve got their own pillow (always bigger than it should be), a massive flask of Five Roses tea, and of course, a family-sized container of rusks for dunking. If you sit next to them, you’ll be fed, hydrated, and maybe even tucked in under their spare blanket.

They’re the real MVPs of South African travel, even if they need two extra bags just for “essentials.”

Some travellers pack like they’re trekking up Kilimanjaro when, in reality, they’re going from Cape Town to Sandton. Meet the overprepared explorer.

Their bag always contains a headlamp, because you never know when load-shedding might strike mid-transit. There’s usually a pair of braai tongs wrapped in socks for protection, and if you look hard enough, a fully collapsible camping chair.

These are the people you want around if the bus breaks down or if a music festival suddenly turns into a camping trip. They might look ridiculous at the check-in desk, but you’ll be grateful when they whip out a gas burner to make two-minute noodles on the N1.

Now we get to the real chaos: the items that have no business being in luggage but somehow make the cut.

There are urban legends about someone trying to pack a potjie pot into checked luggage. Honestly, it sounds believable.

You could laugh at it (and we do), but there’s a deeper truth here: South Africans travel with heart. Whether it’s food that reminds us of home, entertainment that brings strangers together, or over-preparedness that reflects our “just in case” culture, our carry-ons tell a story.

We’re a country where every journey is part road trip, part comedy show, and part braai. We may overpack, overshare, and overwhelm the overhead compartments, but our quirks make the ride far more memorable than the destination.

So next time you’re on a flight, a Greyhound bus, or waiting for your luggage at OR Tambo, take a moment to look around. Somewhere, someone’s carrying a flask of tea, a pack of dominoes, and maybe — just maybe — a frozen chicken.

And honestly? We wouldn’t have it any other way.