East Africa SkySafari

Touch down in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, where skyscrapers tower over the national park plains. Either rest within the grounds before a packed itinerary or start things as they mean to go on with visits to the Giraffe Centre, Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and Karen Blixen Museum.

With Mount Kilimanjaro as a backdrop, start the journey off in Amboseli National Park. As dawn breaks, set out with a camera in hand on morning game drives, the animals are at their most active then. And while the lions return from their night of hunting, sit down to enjoy your own breakfast in the bush. Come afternoon there’s a chance for even closer encounters of the bush walk kind, while dusk sees G&Ts sipped back at base camp.

After a morning game drive, it’s onto Loisaba Conservancy, Laikipia. Home to some rare endangered species (wild dog packs should be on the bucket list), they take their cutting-edge conservation very seriously here. Visit the headquarters to see the anti-poaching work first hand and find out how – along with some very clever sniffer dogs – they safeguard the wildlife. Exploring comes in some out-of-the-box forms too with the likes of horse-back bush riding, canyon rafting and camel trekking.

The Maasai Mara is the Africa of your imagination; fauna-filled and reems of grasslands for miles where herds of zebra and wildebeest cross the river beneath the verandas. Custom four-wheeld-drives venture far out in search of plodding elephants and lions on the hunt, while the Maasai communities that own most of the Mara invite the inquisitive into their homes; teaching their rituals and showing children the ways of a Maasai warrior.

The private jet touches down in Tanzania for the remainder of the journey. First stop: Serengeti National Park. At 14,763 sq km, it’s not short of game viewing, the biggest opportunity being the Great Migration. If timed right, the spectacle of over a million animals crossing the rivers of the north will be delectably ingrained in the brains of everyone who witnesses it. If visiting out of migration hours though, there’re still plenty of animals about. Like the flamboyant flamingos of Lake Magadi alongside some peculiar rock formations acting as canvas to prehistoric paintings.

Sitting pretty on the edge of Ngorongoro Crater, a detour through the surrounding coffee plantations comes before venturing to the crater’s base for a picnic among the acacia trees. Lake Manyara (a favourite of Ernest Hemingway) is also on the agenda where baboons bound from fig tree to fig tree on its banks.

Fly to Arusha in preparation for your flight home, but it’s not quite over yet. Bid a fitting farewell with a walk among the coffee plantations and pause over one last cup of Kilimanjaro java, before heading to the airport for the flight home.