Kenya’s Amboseli, Meru & Mara

You will be met on arrival at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and whisked through the city to Hemingways Nairobi, a luxurious hotel in the upscale neighbourhood of Karen. Here, your personal butler will ensure you have the best possible start to your Kenyan holiday, from assisting you with optional bookings at the spa and wellness centre to confirming your dinner reservation at the contemporary restaurant, which is overseen by the resident Michelin-starred chef.

Alternatively and if your schedule allows it, you may choose to visit some of the city’s highlights like the Daphne Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage, the Karen Blixen Museum or the Giraffe Centre, where you can see a herd of endangered Rothschild’s giraffes. You may even want to have your first game drive with a short visit through Nairobi National Park, where plains game roam freely with a surprising background of skyscrapers!

However you choose to spend your time here, Hemingways Nairobi offers a peaceful respite – with views of the Ngong Hills – after a long-haul flight to Kenya.

It is time to leave the city behind and head to the savannah. After breakfast at Hemingways Nairobi, you will be driven to Wilson Airport for the short flight on a light aircraft to an airstrip in Amboseli National Park. Although it is a small park by Africa’s standards, Amboseli has some of the best views of snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest free-standing mountain in the world.

You will arrive in time to have an Italian-inspired lunch at Tortilis Camp, from which you can enjoy those beautiful vistas of Kili, before heading off on your afternoon game drive in a 30 000-acre private conservancy in the national park. The next morning, breakfast will be out in the bush on your morning game drive while your afternoon will be given over to an exciting walking safari with an armed and trained guide. A highlight of your nature walk will be sundowners in scenic spot as the sun sets on another day in Africa.

Tortilis Camp is completely solar-powered to reduce its ecological impact and enjoys close ties with the local school – if your luggage weight limit allows it, consider packing useful stationery like pencils or notebooks that you can donate directly to the schoolchildren.

Meru National Park is named after another of Kenya’s indomitable giants – Mount Meru. After a last morning game drive and final breakfast at Tortilis Camp, you will fly out of Amboseli and land in Meru in time for a midday meal. Your home for the next two night will be Elsa’s Kopje, named after the lioness Elsa made famous in Joy Adamson’s book Born Free.

The thatched suites and organic shapes that characterise the architecture at Elsa’s Kopje are designed to make the lodge blend into the natural environment on Mughwango Hill as much as possible. A ‘kopje’ is a rocky outcrop and this is one of the original places where Elsa was raised in the mid-1950s. The reserve shelters at least 47 types of raptors in its 600-strong bird list, as well as over a thousand elephants and a large rhino sanctuary.

After lunch, it is up to you whether you would like to go on an afternoon game drive or be pampered with a relaxing massage. The following day follows the classic rhythm of safari: a morning game drive with bush breakfast, lunch at the lodge, an afternoon game drive with sundowners and so to bed.

You are finally flying to the big one: the Masai Mara is one of the most famous parks in the world and is renowned for its role in the annual wildebeest migration from about August every year.

Having enjoyed a dawn nature walk and a breakfast at Elsa’s Kopje, you will then take off from the Meru Airstrip and touchdown at the Keekorok Airstrip in the Mara. A camp inspired by the bygone safaris of the 1920s will be your home here – relax and enjoy dinner on your first night at Sand River Masai Mara, which enjoys a secluded riverside setting.

The next morning, having slept soundly in your canopied 4-poster bed, have breakfast at camp before setting off for a full-day dame drive in Masai Mara National Park. Instead of a few hours, you will have the whole day to seek out lions, elephants, birds or whatever else you and your guide agree to try and find. At midday, your guide will set out a delicious picnic lunch in a shady and safe spot before continuing in the afternoon. Part of the drive will include visiting a traditional Maasai village, generally known in Swahili as a ‘manyatta’.

Back at Sand River, you can freshen and savour a sundowner before tucking into a delicious dinner under the stars, the dusting of the Milky Way twinkling above you…

The beauty of a fly-in safari is the extra time that it affords you at each lodge. Once again, you are able to enjoy breakfast at Sand Rive and even go on a final morning game drive if you choose before having lunch. Only then will you be driven back to Keekorok Airstrip for the short hop back to Wilson Airport.

Once back in Nairobi, you will have your last supper on Kenyan soil before checking in at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for your flight home.