The East African
Grand Safari

Land at Jomo Kenyatta International and transfer to Karen, the leafy suburb well clear of the city’s noise. Hemingways Nairobi is a member of Small Luxury Hotels of the World, with butler service and the Ngong Hills filling the view.

The afternoon is yours to acclimatise. If you would rather move, a private city tour can take in the Karen Blixen Museum or the Giraffe Centre, where you can hand-feed endangered Rothschild’s giraffes.

Dinner is quiet and fine, overlooking the Ngong Hills — the calm before thirty days of wilderness.

A short scenic flight from Wilson Airport into the Rift Valley and Lake Nakuru. The Cliff Nakuru is built along a 100-metre escarpment, and every tented suite has floor-to-ceiling glass looking out over the entire lake basin.

The first game drive follows. Nakuru is a rhino sanctuary and gives some of the most reliable black and white rhino sightings in Kenya, alongside the flocks of flamingo that turn the shoreline pink.

As the light goes, your guide sets up a private bar at the Baboon Cliff viewpoint. It is a good place for the first African sundowner.

An early Cliff Boat Safari, which is a genuinely unusual perspective and unavailable from the road. You glide past pods of hippo and waterbuck wading through drowned acacia forest — the lake has risen in recent years and the flooded trees have changed the landscape entirely.

The rising water also brings you closer to the birdlife than any vehicle can: pelicans, flamingo and a great deal else.

The rest of the day is the infinity pool, or a guided walk to Makalia Falls at the southern end of the park, followed by an afternoon drive along the shoreline and a sundowner back at the lodge.

A morning drive in the park, then a bush flight to the Maasai Mara. You land on the savannah and transfer to the banks of the Talek River and the JW Marriott Masai Mara Lodge, the brand’s first safari lodge and built around wellness as much as wildlife.

Your suite has a private deck over the river, and a resident elephant herd comes down to drink within sight of it often enough that you should keep the camera close.

The first afternoon drive is an introduction to rolling grassland and a density of game that takes most people by surprise — lion, elephant and giraffe against a setting sun.

Awake before dawn for the quintessential safari experience. The balloon lifts as the sun comes up and you drift silently over the savannah — wildebeest and zebra moving below, the silhouette of a giraffe, and sometimes a pride starting the morning hunt.

The landing is traditional and involves champagne, followed by a bush breakfast in the middle of the plains with white-tablecloth service set up on the grass.

The rest of the day is on game drives, working the wider Mara.

A full day out, reaching the furthest parts of the reserve in a private 4x4 with a guide who knows where the animals were yesterday and what that means for today.

This is prime Great Migration country, and from July to October you may witness a Mara River crossing — thousands of wildebeest and zebra going into crocodile water because instinct says to. It is not guaranteed, it is not gentle, and it is unforgettable.

A picnic lunch in the bush, then a sundowner at a viewpoint as the sun goes down over the grass.

On foot this morning, with a resident naturalist and an armed Kenya Wildlife Service ranger. Walking changes the scale of everything — tracks, medicinal plants, dung, insects, and the small mechanics of an ecosystem a vehicle drives straight past.

The afternoon includes a visit to a Maasai manyatta, arranged as a genuine exchange rather than a performance: conversation with community elders, a traditional dance, and an honest look at how conservation partnerships actually work here.

A final Mara drive, then a farewell dinner under the stars.

A last morning drive, then a bush flight to Entebbe. You clear customs and meet your Ugandan guide.

The drive southwest towards Bwindi is long and genuinely beautiful, climbing through green hills, tea plantations and busy roadside villages. Uganda looks nothing like the Kenyan savannah you left this morning.

You arrive on the edge of the Impenetrable Forest as the light goes.

Sanctuary Gorilla Forest Camp is the only luxury camp inside Bwindi Impenetrable National Park itself, which matters for two reasons: the atmosphere, and the fact that the trekking briefing centre is a short walk rather than a long drive.

Your tented suite sits inside the forest canopy, and the soundtrack is entirely birds and primates. There is a deep bathtub with a forest view, which after tomorrow you will be glad of.

Dinner is served on the raised forest platform with the jungle noise all around.

The day the whole journey has been building towards. After an early breakfast you head to the park headquarters for a briefing from expert trackers, then walk into the forest.

The terrain is genuinely demanding — steep, wet, thick, and the name Impenetrable is not decorative. Trekking can take one hour or six. Then the trackers stop, and a habituated family of mountain gorillas is in front of you, and you have one hour with them as they feed, play, groom and largely ignore you.

Back at camp, a complimentary massage, and dinner with the day still sitting on everyone.

North into Queen Elizabeth National Park through the Ishasha sector, which is famous for one thing: lions that climb trees and spend the day draped along the branches of ancient fig trees. Nobody fully agrees on why they do it.

On to the Mweya Peninsula for a private afternoon boat safari on the Kazinga Channel — enormous pods of hippo, Nile crocodile on the banks, and elephant families coming down to drink at close range.

Check in at Kyambura Gorge Lodge on the edge of the Rift Valley escarpment.

You walk from the lodge directly down into Kyambura Gorge, a sunken strip of tropical forest cut into the savannah, to track wild chimpanzees. It is harder going than a game drive and the reward is a close encounter with our nearest relatives moving through the canopy overhead.

The afternoon is spent on your private deck, watching the sun go down over the gorge, the savannah plains and, on a clear day, the snow on the Rwenzori Mountains in the distance.

A short drive to the airstrip and a flight into Kigali, where a new guide meets you for the transfer to the Radisson Blu.

The afternoon is the Kigali Genocide Memorial, and it is an essential part of any visit to this country. It is difficult, it is handled with great care, and without it nothing about modern Rwanda quite makes sense.

The evening is quiet by design.

A thirty-minute helicopter flight east from Kigali, landing on the private helipad at Wilderness Magashi in a private concession in northern Akagera — which is as good an entrance to a national park as exists anywhere.

Akagera is Rwanda’s Big Five country, restored over the past decade from near-collapse into one of the great conservation stories on the continent.

The late afternoon is a sunset boat cruise on Lake Rwanyakazinga, among enormous pods of hippo and basking Nile crocodile.

With the gorillas behind you, the attention turns to savannah game. A full day on 4x4 drives tracking lion, black and white rhino, leopard and elephant, framed by the hills that make Akagera look unlike any other East African park.

Large herds of zebra and antelope move across the plains, and the birdlife along the lakes is exceptional.

Your guide finds a scenic spot for a bush lunch, which is the best possible use of the middle of a hot day.

A charter helicopter southwest across Rwanda, and the country earns its nickname from the air more completely than it ever can from the road — hill after terraced hill to the horizon in every direction.

You land on the helipad at One&Only Nyungwe House, set inside the working Gisakura tea estate on the edge of one of the oldest rainforests in Africa.

The afternoon is a curated tea plantation tour with the local cooperative, learning to pick and then tasting what comes of it. The green is relentless and extraordinary.

Into Nyungwe on foot. The canopy walkway is a suspension bridge strung sixty metres above the forest floor, and it delivers a view of a rainforest almost nobody gets: from the top down.

The afternoon tracks habituated chimpanzee troops, or the Ruwenzori colobus, which move through the branches in groups that can number in the hundreds.

Nyungwe holds roughly a fifth of all the primate species in Africa, and it is one of the oldest forests on the continent.

A scenic two-hour drive north along the road that skirts the shore of Lake Kivu, one of the African Great Lakes and a total change of register after the rainforest.

Check in at the Lake Kivu Serena in Rubavu. The afternoon is a white-sand lake beach, a traditional sunset boat ride, and fresh tilapia with a drink in hand.

After eighteen days this is the first genuinely idle afternoon, and it is deliberate.

An early scenic drive back towards Kigali by way of Nyanza, Rwanda’s historic royal capital, and the King’s Palace Museum — a careful reconstruction of the traditional royal residence.

The Inyambo cattle are the reason to come: royal cows with enormous, elegantly curved horns, whose keepers still sing to them in the traditional manner. It is one of the strangest and most memorable half-hours in East Africa.

From Kigali Airport you fly to Dar es Salaam, where your guide transfers you to the Element by Westin for a soft coastal landing before the Tanzanian sector begins.

A flight from Dar es Salaam to Manyara airstrip. &Beyond Lake Manyara Tree Lodge is the only luxury lodge inside the national park, suspended in the upper branches of a mahogany grove with elephants occasionally wandering underneath.

The afternoon drive goes looking for Manyara’s celebrated tree-climbing lions and works through the park’s remarkable range of habitats, from the soda lake to the groundwater forest.

A full day across the park’s habitats. Manyara is among the most biodiverse safari landscapes in East Africa, and the density of birdlife around the lake is extraordinary.

The evening brings a night game drive, exclusive to this lodge, and the park after dark belongs to a different cast: bushbabies, civets, genets and, with luck, a leopard on the move.

A morning climb up the Great Rift Valley wall to the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater, and check-in at &Beyond Ngorongoro Crater Lodge, whose Versailles-meets-Maasai interiors have to be seen to be believed.

A full-day floor safari descends into the world’s largest unbroken caldera. This is the single most reliable place on Earth to see black rhino, and the Big Five are all present within a space you can see across.

A private luxury picnic lunch on the crater floor, surrounded by game.

Back down to Manyara airstrip and a charter to Kogatende in the far northern Serengeti — the remote end, and the one worth the extra flying.

Nomad Lamai Serengeti is built directly into the giant granite boulders of the Kogakuria Kopje, and the rooms are wedged between the rocks rather than placed on them.

Four nights here gives time to work the Mara River properly. From July to October this is prime positioning for the crossings. An afternoon drive introduces the country.

A full day given entirely to the Serengeti. Morning and evening game drives, guided walking safaris around the kopjes, and a private bush dinner under the stars if you want one.

The northern Serengeti is vast, remote and very lightly visited compared with the centre. Your guide works to current wildlife movements rather than a fixed route, which is the whole advantage of being here for four nights.

The day is spent along the Mara River, the stage for one of the great spectacles in nature. You position along the banks where the herds are gathering and wait, because that is what everyone does — the animals decide when.

In season, a crossing is chaos and courage in equal measure and it takes a while afterwards to say anything sensible about it.

Bush breakfast and lunch are taken out with you, so that no time is lost coming back.

The final Serengeti day is a walking safari with an armed ranger, working the ground around the kopjes at the pace the details require.

A bush breakfast in the wilderness follows — a fitting farewell to the savannah after three weeks of it.

The evening is an exclusive bonfire dinner under the stars.

A flight straight out of the bush from Kogatende to Zanzibar, and a private transfer to Meliá Zanzibar for the last four nights — The Level Beach Pavilions or one-bedroom villas, with a private infinity pool and a secluded beach section.

The rest of the day is white sand and the first swim in the Indian Ocean, which after three weeks of dust is a specific kind of relief.

A private tour of Stone Town with a dedicated historian, through the labyrinth of alleys to the Old Slave Market, the Sultan’s Palace and the coral-stone buildings that give the town its UNESCO listing. It is a complicated history and it deserves a proper guide.

The afternoon is a working organic spice farm — clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla and cardamom, tasted and smelled rather than described. Zanzibar’s entire history is in that list.

Back to the resort for a quiet evening by the sea.

A private boat excursion, to the Menai Bay Conservation Area or the Mnemba Atoll depending on conditions, for dolphins and snorkelling.

Pods of wild humpback and bottlenose dolphins play in the surf, and the reef snorkelling around Mnemba is among the healthiest in the region.

A seafood lunch on a secluded beach or aboard, and back to the resort for sunset.

The final full day is pure rest — pool, private beach, spa, at whatever pace you like.

In the late afternoon you board a traditional wooden dhow for a private sunset cruise along the coast, with a live acoustic Tarab musician aboard, chilled champagne and fresh-grilled seafood skewers as the sun goes into the Indian Ocean.

It is a romantic and slightly improbable finale to thirty days of Africa.

A final island breakfast, then the flight back to Nairobi and a transfer to Hemingways for a last night or a day room, depending on your onward flight.

The spa here is the right place to sit with thirty-one days of it, with the Ngong Hills back in the window where the journey began. Your driver takes you to Jomo Kenyatta International when you are ready.