I have been to Africa on regular holidays about a dozen times, and once did a self-drive with friends in Botswana for two weeks, but that is a far cry from the upcoming two months on the road. I’m wondering if you have any advice on what to use to power my digital camera and laptop? I have one of the adaptors that can be plugged into car cigarette lighters, which seems to power the digital SLR camera battery charger. I’m less sure about the laptop – I think Apple (I will be taking a MacBook) make an in-car charger. Did you use in-car chargers and have you found any solar chargers that can produce enough power for digital SLR batteries or a laptop?

Andrew Brown Herbert by email

Mary Askew, Travel Africa’s Self-drive columnist replies:
If you are taking your own car, you might want to think about fitting a power inverter. This gives you a number of regular square pin sockets in your car that use converted power from the car battery. Some people chose to connect their power inverter to a second ‘leisure battery’, which means they don’t risk draining their main car battery if they sit still for a few days. All this is not as expensive as it might sound.

If you are driving a hire car then your choices are more limited. Adapters for car cigarette lighters are an option – just make sure that they minimise risks by having built-in safety features such as over current protection. I’d also invest in a second battery for your SLR. I’ve met a few people who have tried solar chargers but have yet to hear from anyone who has found them 100 per cent reliable.

Best wishes, and good luck with your trip – it sounds fabulous.