Kenya safaris the way we travel them ourselves

A tailor-made Kenya safari starts at €6,000 per person excluding international flights. Exclusive fly-in safaris with camps in private conservancies start at around €10,000 per person. The price is driven mainly by lodge category, the number of domestic and charter flights, and the season: in the high season from June to October, camp rates are considerably higher than in the green season. Your personal travel proposal itemises every service.

It depends mainly on how many areas you want to see in how much time. Where the destinations lie far apart – Laikipia and the Masai Mara, for instance – a light aircraft saves half a day to a full day per leg; that is exactly how our seven-day Fly-Safari Special: Laikipia & Masai Mara is built. A road safari makes sense when the legs connect, when budget matters, or when you don't want to skip the landscape in between. Many guests mix the two: one leg by vehicle, the return by air.

At least 8 days. That is enough to combine two areas – the Masai Mara and the north, for example – without the journey turning into a chain of transfers; our Luxury Safari through Kenya is built for exactly those eight days. With 11 to 14 days you can add a third area or the Indian Ocean: our Family Safari in Kenya combines both in 11 days, the Masai Mara and Seychelles pairing needs 14.

TODO: lead time in months for the June to October high season – to follow from the CMS. The core answer belongs in the first sentence. The reason for booking early is the size of the houses: Sarara Camp has six tents, Ol Pejeta Bush Camp eight, Naboisho Camp nine – in the dry season they fill up early. Outside the high season, shorter notice is often still workable; simply get in touch.

Yes, very much so. The journey is short – around 9 hours from Frankfurt to Nairobi – the time difference is one hour in summer and two in winter, and you fly between the wildlife areas in light aircraft rather than driving long distances. For a first visit we recommend the Masai Mara plus a second, quieter area in the north. Our eight-day Luxury Safari through Kenya is built exactly that way: high wildlife density, short distances, little time on the road.

Yes. A short flight, barely any time difference, and private conservancies where bush walks and encounters with the local community are possible alongside game drives make Kenya one of the more straightforward safari destinations for families. For families we plan shorter legs and choose houses with dedicated family units – the family suite at Ol Pejeta Bush Camp, for instance, or the Loimugi House at Sarara Camp with two bedrooms and a private pool. We often add days on the Indian Ocean, as in our 11-day Family Safari in Kenya. Tell us your children's ages and we build the route and activities around them.

For quiet sightings, the conservancies win. In the private areas around the Mara – Naboisho or Enonkishu – the camps are small, and game drives after dark as well as walks on foot are part of the programme. TODO: verify the rules in force in the Masai Mara National Reserve (off-road driving, night drives, vehicle density) and the conservancies' bed limits before sharpening this comparison. What speaks for the reserve is the Great Migration: the river crossings happen on the Mara River. Many routes therefore combine the two – a few nights in the reserve during the migration, with a conservancy before or after.