16-Day Kenya and Tanzania Safari 2027

Highlights

• Nairobi: Meet your Driver Guide and fellow Small Group travelers for dinner in Nairobi on your first evening in Kenya.
• Nairobi: Enjoy lunch at Karen Blixen Garden and Cottages, set close to the former home of Karen Blixen, whose life in Kenya inspired Out of Africa. You’ll dine in the gardens and hear more about Blixen’s story, her coffee farm and the colonial history that shaped this part of Nairobi.
• Nairobi: Enjoy a three-course Farm-to-Table dinner at Shamba Cafe in Nairobi’s Loresho district. You’ll dine in the gardens of this working farm, where herbs, vegetables and flowers are grown on site on the edge of the capital.
• Lake Naivasha: Sit down to a Farm-To-Table lunch at Ranch House Bistro on the shores of Lake Naivasha, known for its papyrus-fringed edges and birdlife. You’ll enjoy dishes made with locally sourced ingredients, including produce from the property’s own farm, served beside the water in this quieter corner of the Rift Valley.
• Maasai Mara National Reserve: Enjoy a private bush barbecue dinner in the Maasai Mara, reserved for your Small Group. Seated in the open air after dark, you’ll dine out in the reserve itself, with the sounds of the Mara carrying through the evening and firelight adding to the atmosphere.
• Arusha: Join your Driver Guide and your small group for dinner at Lake Duluti Lodge, your exclusive small-group hotel near Arusha. Set on a working coffee farm beside Lake Duluti, the lodge brings together private chalets, indigenous trees and the slopes below Mount Meru as you begin your journey through Tanzania.
• Tarangire National Park: Enjoy a private bush breakfast served in an exclusive wilderness setting. With your small group, there’s time to relax over breakfast in the open air, take in the sounds of the landscape and watch for wildlife moving through the surrounding bush.
• Karatu: Enjoy lunch at Gibb’s Farm, a historic coffee estate founded in the 1920s on the fertile slopes outside Karatu. During your visit, explore the gardens, coffee fields and working farm that have shaped the property for generations, and see how the produce grown here continues to define the meals served at one of northern Tanzania’s long-established guest estates.
• Ngorongoro Crater: Picnic on the floor of Ngorongoro Crater, with open grassland, lake water and the steep caldera walls around you.
• Serengeti: Gather for dinner in a traditional boma, where the open fire and enclosed setting bring everyone together after a day in the Serengeti. Shared with your small group, the evening centers on good food, conversation and the atmosphere of dining out in one of Africa’s great safari landscapes.
• Nairobi National Park: Visit the Daphne Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage in Nairobi National Park and watch orphaned elephants arrive for their midday milk feed and mud bath. As each elephant is introduced, you’ll hear its story and see one of Nairobi’s best-known wildlife conservation visits at close range.
• Ol Pejeta: Head into Ol Pejeta Conservancy in the late afternoon, when the softer light shifts across the plains and wildlife begins to stir. Your game drive follows the rhythms of the landscape, from acacia woodland to open grassland, before pausing for a sundowner in the bush, with time to take in the wide views and stillness of the conservancy.
• Ol Pejeta: Visit Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary, the only place in Kenya where chimpanzees can be seen. Opened in 1993, it provides refuge for chimpanzees rescued from the illegal wildlife trade and reveals another side of Ol Pejeta’s conservation work, where long-term care, rehabilitation and protection remain at the center of the sanctuary’s mission.
• Lake Naivasha: Head out onto Lake Naivasha by boat, where calm freshwater, rich birdlife and resident hippos shape one of the Rift Valley’s most distinctive wildlife experiences. Watch the lake at close range as fish eagles circle overhead and hippos surface through the water, revealing a side of Kenya that feels very different from the open plains of safari.
• Maasai Mara National Reserve: Head into the Maasai Mara for an afternoon game drive across wide grasslands and riverine forest shaped by the Mara River. As the light begins to soften, this celebrated reserve reveals the scale and richness of one of Africa’s great wildlife landscapes, with the chance to look out for big cats, plains game and the Big Five.
• Maasai Mara National Reserve: Head out across the Maasai Mara on game drive, where wide grasslands, riverine forest and the Mara River shape one of Kenya’s best-known wildlife reserves. As you explore, look out for the Big Five and the rich concentration of species that makes the Mara such an important part of the country’s safari story.
• Arusha: Explore the hotel’s coffee plantation in Arusha and learn more about the crop that has long shaped life in northern Tanzania. As you walk through the estate, you’ll see how coffee is grown on the fertile slopes below Mount Meru and gain a closer understanding of the region’s agricultural traditions.
• Tarangire National Park: Explore Tarangire in the late afternoon, when the savannah begins to change with the falling light and wildlife moves through the bush in the cooler hours. As the sun lowers, stop for a sundowner in the wilderness and watch the day shift across one of northern Tanzania’s most celebrated safari landscapes.
• Lake Eyasi: Meet the Datoga, a pastoral community of the Lake Eyasi region known for cattle keeping and blacksmithing. Learn more about the metalworking traditions for which the Datoga are well known, and how these long-established skills continue to shape daily life in this part of northern Tanzania.
• Ngorongoro Crater: Descend into Ngorongoro Crater for a game drive across the world’s largest intact and unfilled volcanic caldera. Year-round water and grazing draw wildlife onto the crater floor, making this one of Tanzania’s most concentrated and rewarding safari settings.
• Serengeti: Spend time on game drive in Serengeti National Park, where open plains, kopjes and river lines support one of Africa’s richest wildlife ecosystems. Look out for lion, elephant, giraffe, zebra and antelope as you continue exploring a landscape shaped by movement, season and the constant search for water and grazing.
• Serengeti: Board your flight from the Serengeti to Arusha, leaving from one of the safari circuit’s remote airstrips and rising above the plains as you depart the park.
• Ol Pejeta: Visit Najin and Fatu at Ol Pejeta Conservancy and come face to face with the last two northern white rhinos in the world. As a ranger shares their story, you’ll hear how they arrived in Kenya in 2009 and how science, protection and round-the-clock care now shape one of conservation’s most urgent efforts. Your visit directly supports United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 15: Life on Land.
• Arusha: Visit a social enterprise that trains and employs Tanzanians with disabilities, supporting meaningful employment, skills development and a long-running community project in northern Tanzania. You’ll see weaving, glassblowing, beading, paper making and metalwork, and learn how recycled materials are used across many of the products made here. Your visit directly supports United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities.
• Lake Naivasha: Step onto Crescent Island for a guided walk among the wildlife that roams freely across its open grassland. With zebra, giraffe and antelope moving through the landscape, experience Kenya’s wildlife on foot and at eye level, with Lake Naivasha and the surrounding Rift Valley scenery never far from view.
• Naivasha: Join a guided birdwatching walk in the grounds of Naivasha Sopa Lodge, where acacia-dotted lawns and the lake environment attract a wide variety of birdlife. Look out for African fish eagles, pelicans, kingfishers, herons and cormorants as you explore on foot in one of Kenya’s best-known birding areas.
• Ngorongoro: Join a Local Expert for an introduction to Swahili, the language spoken across much of Tanzania and East Africa. As well as learning useful words and phrases, you’ll gain a clearer sense of how language reflects everyday life, identity and connection across the region.
• Mto Wa Mbu: Walk through Mto wa Mbu with your Driver Guide and spend time in one of northern Tanzania’s most distinctive village communities. Home to around 120 ethnic groups and shaped by the fertile farmland below the Rift Valley escarpment, the village offers a closer look at daily life through its markets, small-scale farming and strong mix of cultures.
• Maasai Mara National Reserve: Visit a Maasai village for a closer look at one of East Africa’s best-known pastoral communities, whose traditions have long been tied to cattle, seasonal movement and life across the Rift Valley. As you meet members of the community, you’ll learn more about customs, daily life and the jumping dance associated with Maasai ceremonial tradition.
• Lake Eyasi: Meet the Hadzabe near Lake Eyasi and learn more about one of East Africa’s last hunter-gatherer communities. See how hunting, gathering and food preparation remain part of daily life, hear their distinctive click language and gain a clearer understanding of the skills and knowledge tied to this landscape.
• Choose between two carefully selected activities
• Lake Naivasha: Step onto Crescent Island for a guided walk among the wildlife that roams freely across its open grassland. With zebra, giraffe and antelope moving through the landscape, experience Kenya’s wildlife on foot and at eye level, with Lake Naivasha and the surrounding Rift Valley scenery never far from view.
• Naivasha: Join a guided birdwatching walk in the grounds of Naivasha Sopa Lodge, where acacia-dotted lawns and the lake environment attract a wide variety of birdlife. Look out for African fish eagles, pelicans, kingfishers, herons and cormorants as you explore on foot in one of Kenya’s best-known birding areas.
• Ngorongoro: Join a Local Expert for an introduction to Swahili, the language spoken across much of Tanzania and East Africa. As well as learning useful words and phrases, you’ll gain a clearer sense of how language reflects everyday life, identity and connection across the region.
• Mto Wa Mbu: Walk through Mto wa Mbu with your Driver Guide and spend time in one of northern Tanzania’s most distinctive village communities. Home to around 120 ethnic groups and shaped by the fertile farmland below the Rift Valley escarpment, the village offers a closer look at daily life through its markets, small-scale farming and strong mix of cultures.