Africa · Kenya
Nairobi to Samburu to Amboseli to the Maasai Mara — the full story of wild Africa, arranged without waste and without repetition.
About This Expedition
“Kenya is where the concept of the safari was born. At its finest, it remains the singular wildlife experience against which everything else is measured.”
This private ten-day journey through four entirely distinct Kenyan ecosystems tells the whole story of wild Africa without repetition, without waste, and without the compromises that ordinary safari planning always entails.
Giraffe Manor for the iconic introduction. Samburu for the species found nowhere else on earth. Amboseli beneath the snow-capped peak of Kilimanjaro. And the Maasai Mara — the greatest wildlife stage on the planet — from the escarpment above, with a view that extends without interruption to the Tanzanian border.
Every camp has been personally inspected by the Martins Travel team. Every guide has been chosen for their decades of experience in this specific landscape. Every detail — the sundowner location, the morning departure time, the private balloon — is confirmed before you board your aircraft.
What Is Included
Day by Day
Every day has been sequenced to create a natural rhythm — arriving rested, departing enriched, and never once conscious of the machinery moving beneath you.
“The best journeys are felt in the body before they are understood by the mind.”
Nairobi
The journey begins in the most charming way imaginable. Giraffe Manor — a 1930s manor house set within a 140-acre private estate in the leafy suburb of Karen — houses a small group of endangered Rothschild giraffes, whose extraordinary long necks appear at the first-floor dining room windows at breakfast with a formality that suggests they have been briefed. You have the full run of the manor for two days. An afternoon visit to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust elephant orphanage — where you are assigned one young elephant to feed for the hour — is followed by dinner at the Restaurant at Giraffe Centre, with a flame-lit garden view. The second morning is yours entirely before the charter flight north.
Giraffe Manor, NairobiSamburu, Northern Kenya
An ecosystem found only in the arid north. The dry riverbeds of Samburu harbour five species unique to this region that cannot be seen in any other park on earth: the Grevy's zebra with its impossibly narrow stripes, the reticulated giraffe in its geometric mosaic, the Somali ostrich, the beisa oryx, and the gerenuk — a gazelle so long-legged that it stands on its hind legs to reach the high acacia branches. Sasaab Lodge perches above the Ewaso Ng'iro river, its white-domed suites open to the breeze and the sound of the hippos below. On Day 4 afternoon, a guided walk along the river with Samburu elders who read the bush the way others read a printed page.
Sasaab Lodge, SamburuAmboseli
The undisputed kingdom of the African elephant. Against the backdrop of Kilimanjaro — snow-capped even in the equatorial heat, its white flanks rising 5,895 metres above the savannah — herds of up to three hundred elephants move through the Amboseli floodplains with a silence and purpose that is deeply moving. The &Beyond Kichwa Tembo conservancy ensures that no vehicles from other operators enter this private section of the park. Your guide, who has been studying the Amboseli elephant families for eighteen years, knows many individuals by name and family group. On Day 6 at sunrise, Kilimanjaro appears above the cloud line in perfect clarity. The elephants move in silhouette below.
&Beyond Kichwa Tembo, AmboseliMaasai Mara
The culmination. Angama Mara — meaning 'suspended in mid-air' in Swahili — sits 500 feet above the Rift Valley floor on the escarpment of the Great Rift, overlooking the precise location where Out of Africa was filmed in 1985. The view across the Mara — unbroken from the camp's glass-fronted tented suites to the Tanzanian border — changes hour by hour: golden at dawn, flat white at noon, then aflame at sunset as the wildebeest herds darken the plains below. Your guide is a fourth-generation Maasai tracker who began learning this landscape at the age of six. On Day 8 at 5am, the hot air balloon inflates silently on the airstrip below the camp and you drift for ninety minutes over the Mara at tree height, watching the lions finish the night shift and the elephants begin the morning one. Champagne breakfast follows on the plain.
Angama Mara, Maasai MaraWhere You Will Stay
Signature Property · Nairobi
Karen, Nairobi, Kenya
Twelve rooms within a 1930s manor house, surrounded by resident Rothschild giraffes. The most beloved property in Africa — booked by any ordinary means eighteen months in advance.
Signature Property · Samburu
Westgate Community Conservancy, Samburu
Nine white-domed suites on a hillside above the Ewaso Ng'iro river, designed in a Moroccan-meets-Samburu aesthetic that is unlike any other lodge in Africa. The community conservancy model here is the finest example of sustainable luxury in Kenya.
Signature Property · Maasai Mara
Oloololo Escarpment, Maasai Mara, Kenya
Perched on the Rift Valley escarpment 500 feet above the Mara plains. The Out of Africa location. Thirty tented suites facing the greatest wildlife landscape on earth. Possibly the finest single view in all of Africa.
Private Enquiry
This itinerary is a point of departure, not a fixed schedule. We will adapt every element to your preferences, your travel party, and the season of travel. Submit your details and a Martins Travel advisor will respond personally within 24 hours.