14 Days Exploring Old Africa in Style Kenya & Tanzania

Days 01 & 02 Nairobi

You will be met by Safari guide and whisked away to the Fairmont Norfolk Hotel. A guaranteed visit to the Giraffe Centre and the illuminating National Museum, pay our respects at the newly renovated home of Karen Blixen

Days 03 & 04 Samburu

We fly 200-plus miles north to the Samburu, Samburu is rugged, calmly inviting, and enveloped in the air of remote Old Africa, scented by acacia. We’ll sojourn in outstanding Samburu camps: Larsens Camp or Elephant Bedroom Camp, both set on the forested banks of the Ewaso Nyiro, much frequented by friendly elephants, whose meanderings we can watch in comfort from the verandas of our airy, superbly designed tents. Game drives in the Samburu introduce us to a fabulous plentitude of large (and cunningly small) mammals.

Days 05 - 06 The Maasai Mara

South by air to the Maasai Mara, the northern reaches of the Serengeti–Maasai Mara ecosystem, earth’s richest wildlife habitat. Our base for explorations in the fabled Mara is the Fairmont Mara Safari Club, Surrounded on three sides by the life-giving Mara River, the Mara Safari Club is a masterpiece of appropriate and generously luxurious design. And it’s a great jumping-off place for extraordinary game drives in the mixed land- and waterscapes of the Mara. We’ll visit a traditional Maasai village as we wend our way through this natural wonderland, the kind of place that moved Hemingway to write, “I loved this country and I felt at home and where a man feels at home, outside of where he’s born, is where he’s meant to go.”

Days 07 - 10 Serengeti

The Serengeti sometimes does remind us of the American prairie, but in truth it can’t be compared with any other place on earth. Its kopje-dotted landscape, its vast and billowing skies, and especially its astounding wealth of wildlife make it one-of-a-gorgeous-kind. Flying via Nairobi and Arusha, we reach our base, Migration Camp, on the hippo-haven Grumeti River. Known for its superb tents (which, one traveller wrote, “have only one thing in common with normal tents: canvas”) and its dramatic setting in rocky outcrops, Migration Camp is revered for its tranquility

Days 11 - 12 Lake Manyara and The Ngorongoro Crater

We take a picturesque flight from the Serengeti to Lake Manyara, then drive to our base for the next three nights, the quietly spectacular Manor at Ngorongoro, whose 10 Cape Dutch cottages (with 20 full suites) are tranquilly set within a coffee plantation adjacent to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.

The Manor, much admired for its cuisine and thoughtful service, offers a wealth of activities, from horsebacking, mountain biking and swimming, to estate walks and recreative spa lounging.
We’ll make the thrilling drive up to one of earth’s wonders, the great, green, animal-nurturing caldera of a once catastrophically cranky, now beneficently mellow volcano, the Ngorongoro. Winding up to the crater’s rim puts us at Vail and Aspen altitudes of well over 7,000 feet, and being up that high, figuratively and actually, we may recall Isak Dinesen’s words in Out of Africa, “The air of the African highlands went to my head like wine, I was all the time slightly drunk with it.” And then we zoom down to the Lost World’s lush and park-like floor (but which, make no mistake, is an animal, not a human, kingdom) for a day’s game viewing and a festive bush picnic.
And we’ll game drive and view-catch at Lake Manyara, which our guy Ernest Hemingway thought “the loveliest lake in Africa.” The lake is a birder’s heaven, (it’s frequented by 300 migratory species), and the water from its Crater Highlands–supplied springs makes it a forested redoubt for all the most glamourous large mammals, including the famed Manyara tree-climbing lions. (It’s a little irreverent, but tree-lounging might be a better description).

Days 13 & 14 Nairobi and homeward bound

We affectionately say goodbye to the great crater, lake, and deliciously homey Manor, and fly to Nairobi, where we’ll rest up in day rooms at the Boma Nairobi before our late evening flights.