Kenya off the beaten track safari

Price

£6100 excluding flights

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Duration

11 Days

Type

Tailor made

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This itinerary is priced per person and designed to give you an idea of what can be included on your bespoke luxury tour of Kenya, tailor-made to suit your personal tastes and preferences.

Description of Kenya off the beaten track safari

Discover a whole different side to one of the world's most beloved safari destinations by getting off the beaten path, participating in fly-camping and walking safaris, led by local guides in remote areas of intense natural beauty.

This unique itinerary takes you deep into the wilderness of Kenya's best wildlife-watching destinations: Laikipia, Samburu and the Masai Mara. You'll encounter safari favourites such as Africa's Big Five and big cats on the prowl, but you'll also be treated to exclusive experiences such as rhino tracking on foot with a local Samburu guide, as part of the Sera Conservancy's pioneering community-led conservation efforts.

A trip to Reteti Elephant Sanctuary offers a glimpse into why conservation is so important, as young orphaned elephants are looked after and reintroduced to the wild. On the cultural side, a visit to Fifty Wells offers a window into the lives of Kenya's local pastoralists, as they take their livestock to the natural springs to drink the water.

Explore Kenya's forgotten wild side on foot, led by camels and those who know the land best - the Maasai, the Samburu and the Turkana. Participate in game drives for a true safari experience, encountering big game in the wild. Then, relax at your safari accommodation with sundowners and stories around the campfire. This is the real Kenya.

Itinerary

Day 1:	Arrive in Kenya - Arriving into Nairobi, you'll be met by a representative and transferred to the domestic airport, where you’ll board a light aircraft flight to Nanyuki. Your light aircraft flight is an experience in itself and you will have amazing views as you fly up towards the Laikipia Plateau. After landing, they'll be met by your guide and driven to your first campsite. Laikipia has miles of unfenced wilderness, spectacular scenery and an abundance of wildlife in greater numbers than anywhere else in Kenya (except the Masai Mara, which you'll visit later). However, unlike the endless open plains in the Mara, Laikipia has a varied landscape of rocky outcrops, rivers, acacia woodlands, riverine forests, open plains and escarpments. You can expect to see elephant, giraffe, buffalo, hippo, Grevy’s zebra, warthog, hyenas, lions, bat-eared foxes and lots of antelope species. Laikipia also has excellent leopard sightings, striped hyena and some of the best wild dog sightings in Africa.
Day 2-3:	Explore Laikipia - Over the next two full days you’ll embark on an adventurous walking safari, fully supported by camels and led by experienced Maasai, Samburu, and Turkana walking guides. Laikipia is one of the only places in Kenya where you can go on a walking safari; travelling by camel rather than vehicle, you’ll access areas that vehicles cannot reach. You’ll be walking through breathtaking landscapes, tracking animals on foot and climbing hills and rocks for phenomenal views, before reaching your next camp. You’ll typically walk for three hours in the morning and another couple of hours in the afternoon. In the afternoon, you can relax at the camp, enjoy a swim in a nearby river or have a siesta, before going for an evening walk and sundowners. At night, you’ll sleep in tents, with a hot bucket shower and long drop toilet nearby. Your evening meal is cooked over the coals and you’ll eat under the stars.
Day 4:	Transfer to Samburu - Today, you’ll say goodbye to your guides and the camels before heading north. You’ll notice the landscape change around you as you enter Samburuland, the driest region of the country. For the next two nights you’ll stay in a lodge either on the banks of the Ewaso Nyiro River in Samburu Game Reserve or in the heart of the Kalama Community Wildlife Conservancy (depending on your personal choice and availability). Leopard are often seen in the rocky outcrops surrounding the lodges and the Ewaso Nyiro river is home to Africa's most approachable elephants.
Day 5:	Explore Samburu - Enjoy a full day of exploring this stunning region. You can enjoy exciting morning, afternoon and night game drives and walking safaris with professional Samburu guides. Samburu National Reserve has a good number of lions, leopards, elephant, monkeys and impalas, as well as many wildlife species endemic to northern Kenya.
Day 6:	Rhino Tracking Experience - This morning you will be driven to the wild, undiscovered northern frontier of Kenya to Saruni Rhino in the Sera Community Conservancy. Saruni Rhino offers the first rhino tracking experience in East Africa and over the next two days you’ll have the chance to enjoy an incredible walking safari tracking black rhino, accompanied by an expert Saruni guide and a highly-trained Sera Community Conservancy ranger, equipped with a transmitter connected to the GPS whereabouts of the rhino throughout the vast sanctuary. This sanctuary is one of the most advanced conservation projects in Kenya.
Day 7:	Reteti Elephant Sanctuary - Continue game drives and black rhino tracking in the sanctuary, plus you can visit Reteti Elephant Orphanage, which provides protection for orphaned and abandoned elephant calves, with an aim to release them back into the wild. We also recommend a visit to Fifty Wells, "Kisima Hamsini," a series of 50 springs where local pastoralists take their livestock to water, digging up water from the wells to fill up holders and troughs.
Day 8:	Transfer to Masai Mara - This morning you'll be driven to the airstrip, where you’ll take a light aircraft flight to the Masai Mara. Upon arrival at the Masai Mara you will be met by a representative and driven to your luxury safari lodge or camp, where you will stay for the next three nights. This afternoon, you’ll head out on your first game drive on the plains of the Masai Mara.
Day 9-10:	Explore the Masai Mara - Over the next two days, you’ll enjoy morning and afternoon game drives in the Masai Mara National Reserve. This iconic reserve offers amazing wildlife viewing opportunities and it’s highly likely that you’ll see zebra, impala, gazelle, wildebeest, buffalo, rhino and elephant, plus lions, cheetahs and leopards. Your lodge or camp may also offer the opportunity for a night game drive, where you’ll see nocturnal animals such as aardvarks and honey badgers. As well as game drives, there are a range of other activities that you can participate in during your time in the Masai Mara, including cultural visits to Maasai villages and markets, guided bush walks, horse riding and black rhino tracking experiences. You can also experience a magical hot air balloon flight over the plains of the Masai Mara followed by a champagne breakfast.
Day 11:	Depart from Kenya - After breakfast, you’ll check out of your accommodation and you’ll be driven back to the airstrip for your light aircraft flight to Nairobi. If your international flight from Nairobi departs late in the evening, we can arrange for you to have a car and driver for the afternoon to ensure that you don’t waste the final day of your holiday. You may wish to visit the endangered Rothschild giraffes at the Giraffe Centre in Lang'ata, or you can visit the Karen Blixen Museum. Or you may wish to do some last-minute shopping at the various markets that sell African handicrafts, such as Utamaduni, the Maasai market at Galleria Mall. Alternatively, you may wish to consider fostering an elephant via the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and then you’ll have the opportunity to visit the orphanage at 5pm during the foster parents feeding time. Your driver will transfer you to Nairobi International Airport in the evening in time to catch your flight home.

Price information

£6100 excluding flights

Convert currency:

This itinerary is priced per person and designed to give you an idea of what can be included on your bespoke luxury tour of Kenya, tailor-made to suit your personal tastes and preferences.

Contact Us

If you'd like to chat about this holiday or need help finding one, we're very happy to help

01273 823 700

Call us Monday after 9am

Calling from outside the UK rosy@responsibletravel.com

Departure information

This trip can be tailor made throughout the year to suit your requirements

Contact Us

If you'd like to chat about this holiday or need help finding one, we're very happy to help

01273 823 700

Call us Monday after 9am

Calling from outside the UK rosy@responsibletravel.com

Travel guides

2 minute summary Map & highlights

Wilderness areas are virtually unmodified from their natural state by human interference. They’re where wildlife – including large predators – roams f...

Responsible Travel

As the pioneers of responsible tourism, we've screened this (and every) holiday so that you can travel knowing it will help support the places and people that you visit, and the planet. Read how below.

Planet

As with all of our luxury holidays, this itinerary has been crafted to ensure that it positively effects the local communities and environments visited.

This itinerary includes trips to some of Kenya's protected areas of natural beauty, including national parks. By visiting these sites (all entrance fees are included in your luxury tour), you are supporting the preservation and conservation of these areas, and indicating to authorities that tourists are interested in protecting both Kenya's incredible natural environments.

Whilst out on safari, please ensure that you don’t leave any litter – everything you carry in, you must carry out. Aside from the environmental damage, litter can be harmful to the wildlife.

We also make a special effort to recommend accommodation providers which have responsible and sustainable initiatives. For example, the Saruni group participates in fantastic community-led conservation initiatives with local tribes, such as the Samburu, which aims to put local people at the forefront of land and wildlife conservation. Saruni Rhino has also been at the forefront of rhino conservation, involving guests with their rhino tracking experience on foot with local guides, helping to monitor the recently re-introduced rhino populations through traditional tracking methods.

People

All the local guides referred to in this itinerary are paid a fair wage. We believe that using local guides is important, as it helps generate local incomes and creates jobs, plus it offers a more authentic travel experience.

We recommend independent local hotels, lodges, guesthouses and campsites, rather than international chain hotels, which helps support local communities and allows you to experience true East African hospitality. For example, Saruni employs 80% local people, with many coming from traditional backgrounds, and can therefore offer a local's perspective on the wildlife and the land during safari excursions. The Saruni group also participates in the amazing Pack for a Purpose initiative, which invites guests to use extra luggage space to bring donations of supplies for local communities, such as schools.

This luxury Kenya safari holiday includes the option for cultural experiences learning about local traditions with trips to local villages, where you can buy authentic souvenirs. We believe getting to know the destination and the people who live there means that you will have a more authentic and meaningful travel experience.

Kenya off the beaten track safari