Kenya’s Wild Side Camping

After meeting your guide and fellow travellers in Nairobi, you are briefed about the journey and can then settle back in your seat and watch the urban landscape slowly change into a rural one, and then one where antelope and giraffe replace cattle and goats. Your first destination is Kenya’s signature wildlife reserve – the Masai Mara – and there is time for an afternoon game drive before settling into camp on the edge of the reserve. The next day is a full day on safari and your chance to see why the Mara is rated so highly as a wildlife destination. It is a Big 5 destination (rhino, elephant, lion, leopard and buffalo) as well as one famous for its general wildlife and rarities like cheetah and even wild dog.

Between August and November the Great Wildebeest Migration rolls into the Masai Mara – the river crossing season is especially dramatic – but such is the scale of the wildlife here that a visit at any time of year is highly rewarding.

After breakfast in the Masai Mara you head for one of Kenya’s famous Rift Valley lakes, Lake Naivasha, where you set up camp on the lakeshore. There’s time to stretch your legs on an afternoon bush walk in a private nature reserve on the lake’s Crescent Island. It’s a great chance to see some of the smaller details of the lake’s ecology – birds, insects, animal tracks – as well as the lake’s famous hippos. Then it’s time to relax at camp with a cold drink as the sun sinks and the sounds of the night emerge – owls, frogs and nightjars – followed by a delicious dinner served next to the campfire.

One of the world’s most iconic mountains, Mount Kilimanjaro provides the backdrop to Amboseli National Park and your campsite on its border. You arrive in time for an afternoon game drive and can look forward to a whole day on safari the next day. A mostly dry and sparsely vegetated park, Amboseli’s trump card is its lush wetlands where large elephant herds gather with snow-capped Kili, rising nearly six kilometres (3.7 miles) in the background. As well as its famously photogenic elephants, Amboseli is also home to heavyweight predators like lion, leopard, hyena and cheetah, as well as their prey such as buffalo, giraffe, zebra and antelope.

One of Africa’s biggest conservation areas, Tsavo is a giant swathe of red-earth savannah, raw and wild and home to a pleasing mix of classic savannah animals as well as those from the more arid north. Along with red-mud coated elephants and antelope, you’ll look for the long-necked gerenuk, Grevy’s zebra and the Somali ostrich – the male bird complete with blue neck and legs. It’s a good destination for big cats too, especially lion (the males with a characteristically short or absent mane) and cheetah. You divide your time between a campsite in Tsavo East National Park and another campsite in the Tsavo Conservancy, a game-rich corridor between Tsavo East and West National Parks.

Start the day with an early breakfast and lace up your boots: it’s a morning hike with a local Tsavo guide and an opportunity to take in both views and wildlife sightings. Your guide will point out birds and medicinal plants and show you how his people have survived on the savannah, competing in a world of big cats and elephants. After the hike, it’s a back route through the scenic Shimba Hills and an afternoon arrival at Diani Beach, one of Kenya’s top Indian Ocean destinations. It’s the end of the safari but the perfect start to a beach holiday – ask us for more information.