Kenya 2024: Eleven Days on Safari

In October 2024 the five of us went on safari in Kenya. The kids were 13, 10 and 6. We flew Turkish Airlines with a stop in Istanbul on the way, landed in Nairobi on October 6, and spent the next eleven days with a guide and a 4x4 Land Cruiser, with a game drive most mornings and afternoons.

Samburu (2 nights)

From Wilson Airport in Nairobi we took a small plane north to Samburu National Reserve. Samburu is drier than the parks in the south, and it has its own "Samburu Special Five": the Grevy's zebra, the Somali ostrich, the reticulated giraffe, the gerenuk and the beisa oryx. We stayed at Sarova Shaba Lodge.

Lake Nakuru (1 night)

Next came Lake Nakuru National Park, known for its rhinos and birdlife, and a night at Sarova Lionhill Lodge.

The Maasai Mara (4 nights)

The Mara was the heart of the trip: four nights at Zebra River Camp. We found lions and elephants, visited a Maasai village, went out on foot with a Maasai guide, and ended one day with a sundowner on the plains.

The highlight: a balloon over the Mara

If we had to pick one moment from the whole trip, it is this one. On October 11 we were up in the dark and driven out to the launch site, where the crew had the balloons laid out on the grass and were filling them with hot air as the sky got light.

We climbed into the basket, the burner roared, and we lifted off just as the sun came up over the plains. There were other balloons drifting around us, and below us the Mara stretched out in every direction.

After we landed there was a champagne breakfast set up in the bush. If you go to the Mara with kids, this is the one thing we would tell you not to skip.

Lake Naivasha (1 night)

A freshwater lake in the Great Rift Valley. We stayed at Lake Naivasha Sopa Lodge, took a boat out on the lake to look for hippos, and walked among zebras grazing on the grounds.

Amboseli (2 nights)

Amboseli is known for its big elephant herds with Mount Kilimanjaro behind them, across the border in Tanzania. We stayed at Kibo Amboseli Camp, and one evening we went out on a night drive and found lions by spotlight.

Nairobi

On our last day we flew from Amboseli back to Nairobi and went to the Giraffe Centre, where you can feed endangered Rothschild's giraffes from a raised platform, before our flight that night.