Suggested Itinerary
Day 1: Arrive in Nairobi
Nairobi Tented Camp
Arrive into Nairobi, get picked up by your driver and privately transferred into Nairobi National Park (in the middle of the city!), and overnight at the Nairobi Tented Camp.
Day 2: Sheldrick Wildlife Trust
Nairobi Tented Camp
Today, you will enjoy an early morning game drive in the park. This park is a very unique place, and an example of conservation set within an urban jungle. Here you can see rhino, lions, giraffe, and many other species!
At 11:00 a.m., head to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust to see the baby elephants and learn about their daily routines. Afterward, head to the Giraffe Center (connected to Giraffe Manor) where you will learn about giraffe ecology, conservation and also get to interact with these docile creatures.
At 5:00 p.m., return to the Daphne Sheldrick Wildlife Trust to meet your foster elephant(s) and spend some time learning about their stories, trials and triumphs surviving one of the worst poaching crises, or human related issues such as unprotected wells. After spending some quality time with your foster baby, head back to the Nairobi National Park and your tented camp for a relaxing dinner.
Day 3: Depart Nairobi – Tsavo East
Ithumba Camp
Today, depart for Ithumba Camp and Tsavo Park East. You will have 2 days to enjoy this amazing landscape and meet the elephants who have been released back into the wild, but also the ones that are still at the Ithumba Camp. Spend time with the elephants and learn about their stories and the Tsavo East.
Tsavo East National Park is by far the biggest of Kenya’s parks. Tsavo East is nine times bigger than the Maasai Mara National Reserve; you could indeed fit the whole of the Mara reserve into the southern tip of Tsavo East National Park, south of the Voi River. Most famous for its huge herds of dust-red elephants, more than 10,000 of them bulldoze their way around this vast park on regular basis.
Tsavo East has another big draw: you can set off on a game drive across the seemingly empty wilderness and return to camp three hours later without having seen a single other vehicle. There are very few camps and lodges here. And, relatively speaking, almost none, with the majority of them close to Voi in the west near the Mombasa highway. You often have the park to yourself, watching the wildlife under a huge sky. No matter what you’re looking at, Tsavo East always feels like a big vast landscape.
Day 4: Tsavo East
Ithumba Camp
Spend the morning with the elephants, where from 6:00-8:00 a.m. they are bottle fed at the stockades. At 11:00 a.m., it’s time for a bath! Enjoy watching the playful elephants take a refreshing mud bath! Then, from between 5:00-6:00 p.m. you’ll head back to the stockades for feeding time.
Day 5: Depart Tsavo East for Amboseli
Tortilis Camp
Here you will have the opportunity to enjoy some excellent safari time, as well as visit Cynthia Moss’s world renowned elephant conservation program. You will receive a lecture from the researchers and take a tour of the research facility.
All activities, including game drives and walks, take place inside of the park as well as within the 30,000-acre game reserve.
Day 6: Safari in Amboseli
Tortilis Camp
Today, head out and look for elephants, further expanding your knowledge about their ecology and the challenges they face.
Amboseli National Park is located in Loitoktok District, Rift Valley Province of Kenya.The park is 392 km2; 151 sq. mi in size and the core ecosystem spreads across the Kenya-Tanzania border with stunning views of Mt. Kilimanjaro. The park is famous for being the best place in Africa to get close to free-ranging elephants, among other wildlife species. Other attraction of the park includes opportunities to meet the Maasai people and also offers spectacular views of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest free-standing mountain in the world.
Amboseli has an endless underground water supply filtered through thousands of feet of volcanic rock from Kilimanjaro’s ice cap, which funnel into two clear water springs in the heart of the park. However, the climatic pendulum can swing from drought to flood, and in the early 1990’s ceaseless rain changed Amboseli into a swamp. A few years later the rains failed, and the grass-covered plains turned to dust. It’s a dynamic and impressive place to say the least.
Day 7:
Depart Tsavo East and head back to Nairobi