03/01/2024
We are off to Kenya & Tanzania in 2024!!! Of all the travel I have enjoyed, Africa is my very favourite destination and we're going back. There's room for YOU!
Here's all the details, just so's you know. The dates are Nov 2 - 14, 2024 with a day on each end for flights. The per person cost is $10665 CAD with inclusions as stated below. The single supplement if you are travelling solo is $1275 CAD pp. Flights from Canada to Kenya/Tanzania return are additional. Deposits are $1750 CAD per person with final payment due Sep 2 but we'll collect a tad early so nothing falls through the cracks.
There will likely be some additional cost for visas and immunizations. Travel insurance is available if you're not retired public servant or military for whom MEDOC is the best value in travel insurance if you have PSHCP and are a NAFR member.
If you have an upscale camera, this is the trip on which it will pay for itself!!
BEST TRIP EVER! Once you have seen the elephants in the wild, you will never be the same. Not surprising, the same is true for the lions, the jaguar, the cheetah, the zebras and so on. My favourite animal after two African trips is the giraffe, perhaps surprisingly but we can talk!
The Sweetwaters Camp where we will stay for a few nights is amazing. They salt the waters so the animals come to drink; you are only a ditch away from them as they quench their thirst - rhinos, giraffes with their unique way to bend to drink, lions and more!! You can't believe it until you've lived it.
Contact me or my senior agent, Coreen Doucett, at [email protected] to book or with questions. [email protected].
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Day by Day Itinerary Day 1: Depart Toronto Today, depart on your journey to Nairobi.
Day 2: Arrival in Nairobi JAMBO - KARIBU!!
Upon arrival and after clearing customs and immigration. Tourcan Vacations representatives will meet you and transfer you to your hotel in Nairobi, Kenya’s colorful capital city to check in to your hotel. Rest of the day is at leisure.
Overnight: The Sarova Stanley Hotel
Day 3: Nairobi Visit Daphne Sheldrick orphanage.
This visit takes place from 11:00am to 12:00pm. Travel to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, also known as the Elephant Orphanage. It is widely known the damage that poachers continue t do to the elephant population as well as other animals, like rhinos. To save the baby elephants that are orphaned, the Sheldrick Trust becomes their “adoptive mother” and takes care of them 24/7 – feeding them, making sure they are warm or cold enough, playing with them, and giving them lots of love! The only time that is possible to see the elephants is from 11am to 12 noon when the keepers bring the elephants to a cordoned area to play, feed, and to show the public how well they are doing. While you do not get to feed the elephants, if they get close to you, you can touch and pet them. But just being there, watching them playing happily with each other and listening to their story is quite a moving experience.
Continue to visit the Giraffe Centre with lunch at Karen Blixen Coffee Garden; get the opportunity to get up close and personal with these friendly giants. Established by Jock Leslie-Melville in 1979, the centre's main purpose is to protect and help in the breeding of the endangered Rothschild Giraffe. During a visit to the centre, you will be able to interact with and feed the giraffes from a raised observation platform. These platforms allow the visitors to come eye-to-eye with the giraffes. Later you will be transferred to a host family residence for a welcome dinner party.
Overnight: The Sarova Stanley Hotel – Stanley Room
Meal: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
DAY 4: Nairobi/Ol Pejeta Conservancy
After breakfast, you will depart for Ol Pejeta Conservancy arriving at your tented camp for check in then lunch. The Ol Pejeta Conservancy and its sumptuous ranch was once the private domain of famed multi-millionaire, Adnan Kashoggi. You enjoy a game drive in this game wealthy conservancy with a visit to the Chimpanzee Sanctuary, a charming haven established by the Jane Goodall Institute to provide sanctuary to orphaned chimps, and the specially protected refuge of black rhino. Sweetwaters boasts excellent game viewing with the highest ratio of game to area of any park or reserve in Kenya. The camp overlooks one of the busiest waterholes in the area and offers an astounding variety of animals including all the Big Five and myriad of plains game. This is Africa as Teddy Roosevelt saw it years ago when he led one of the first safaris to tour Africa in comfort and splendor. The tents at Sweetwaters will remind one of this past era. Dinner and overnight at your camp.
Overnight: Sweetwaters Tented Camp
Meal: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
DAY 5: Ol Pejeta Conservancy
This full day will be spent in Ol Pejeta Conservancy on two extensive game viewing drives per day. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the camp.
Overnight: Sweetwaters Tented Camp
Meal: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
DAY 6: Ol Pejeta Conservancy/ Lake Nakuru National Park
After breakfast depart for Lake Nakuru National Park, with a brief stop at the Thompson’s Falls, to arrive in time for lunch. This afternoon you will proceed on a game viewing drive circumventing Lake Nakuru. The lake is situated in the heart of the Rift Valley and is one Kenya's most famous soda lakes. A major feature of this park is the bird life, and it is world renowned as the home for millions of flamingos. A rhino sanctuary also provides the opportunity to see the greatly endangered black rhino. Return to the camp/lodge for dinner and overnight.
Overnight: Mbweha Camp
Meal: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
DAY 7: Lake Nakuru National Park /Masai Mara Game Reserve
After a sumptuous breakfast, you will be transferred to Nanyuki Airstrip for your flight to Masai Mara. It is perhaps the only region left in Kenya where the visitor may see animals in the same super-abundance as existed a century ago. You will be met on arrival at the airstrip by the camp guide and vehicle, enjoy a game viewing drive enroute to the camp. Arrive for lunch and some relaxation time. In the afternoon you will proceed on another game viewing drive in this vast and expansive reserve teeming with game.
Mara game reserve is famous for her Big Five, the most sought after in the early 20th century, when Kenya was a hunters' paradise. These include the lion, Cape buffalo, the savanna elephant, black rhino, and the elusive leopard. The vast savanna grasslands is home to impalas, maasai giraffes, waterbucks, warthogs, thompson & grand gazelles, topis, the resident wildebeests among many others. Dinner and overnight at your lodge.
Overnight: Tipilikwani Mara Camp
Meal: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Day 8: Masai Mara Game Reserve AMKA! Wake Up, it’s another early start. After a cup of coffee or tea and some snacks, you will proceed on a morning game viewing drive. You will have opportunity of view what you probably missed the previous day some of which include cheetahs, leopards, buffaloes alongside prides of lions, herds of elephants, zebras, wildebeests, Topis, elands, Thomson gazelles, jackals, hyenas, Mara River hippos and crocodiles, warthogs with several other bird species. You will also drive down to Mara River to see the wildebeest prepare for their migration; if you are lucky you could witness to see the wildebeests migrate.
After lunch at the lodge depart on an afternoon game viewing drive. The Rolling plains and grasslands, stretching far into the horizons as far as the eye can see is home to the many exotic animals such as the Cape buffalo, the Masai giraffe, among others. The Mara game reserve is one that can never disappoint. One is spoilt by the variety of bird and wildlife species in this game reserve. For a long time, Mara Game Reserve has stubbed her authority as the ‘granary’ of wildlife in Kenya. Return for dinner and overnight.
Overnight: Tipilikwani Mara Camp
Meal: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
DAY 9: Masai Mara Game Reserve This full day will be spent in the Mara on two extensive game viewing drives per day. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the camp.
Overnight: Tipilikwani Mara Camp
Meal: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Day 10: Masai Mara Game Reserve/ Serengeti National Park Check out of the camp after breakfast and you will be transferred to the Airstrip for your flight to the worldfamous Serengeti National Park, which is Tanzania's oldest park, and one of the world's last great wildlife refuges. The Serengeti ecosystem supports the greatest remaining concentration of plains game in Africa, including more than three million large mammals. The Serengeti together with Kenya’s Masai Mara Game Park form Africa’s most famous wildlife park. The image of acacia trees on an endless grass plain epitomises Africa for many, and then add a Masai warrior and some cattle to the picture.
The annual wildebeest migration through the Serengeti and the Masai Mara is the largest mass movement of land mammals on the planet – with more than a million animals following the rains. But that is not where the game viewing ends; large prides of lions, elephants and giraffes in grasslands, gazelles, and eland to mention but a few. Arrive at our lodge for check-in, dinner and overnight.
Overnight: Serengeti Serena Safari Lodge
Meal: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Day 11: Serengeti National Park The day starts with a full day of game viewing drives with Picnic Box lunches, on the vast Serengeti plains. In the early morning and evening light, the Serengeti landscape is stunningly beautiful. The Rolling plains and grasslands, stretching far into the horizons as far as the eye can see is home to the black-maned lion, the savannah elephant, the Cape buffalo, wildebeests, the elusive leopard, cheetah, the spotted & stripped hyena, the rhino, topi, Burchelle’s zebra, the Maasai giraffe among many others. Serengeti National Park is one that can never disappoint. One is spoilt by the variety of bird and wildlife species in this game reserve with game-viewing drives. Return for dinner and overnight.
Overnight: Serengeti Serena Lodge
Meal: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Day 12: Serengeti National Park /Ngorongoro Conservation Area After breakfast, depart to Ngorongoro and stop at the Olduvai Gorge, one of the most important prehistoric sites in the world to learn about human evolution. Enjoy an on-site talk on the interpretation of the gorge by the resident guide. Arrive for check-in and lunch.
Relax at the lodge and enjoy the breath-taking spectacular views of the crater below. Ngorongoro Crater has the largest unbroken caldera in the world. It has been described as one of the great natural wonders of the world. Eight million years ago, the Ngorongoro Crater was an active volcano, but its cone collapsed, forming the crater that is 610 m deep, 20 km in diameter, and covers an area of 311 sq. km. Spectacular as it is, the crater accounts for just a tenth of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. The crater is home to many species of wild game and birds. Except forimpala and topi (due to fierce competition with the wildebeest) and the giraffe since there’s not much to eat at tree level), almost every species of African plains mammal lives in the crater, including the endangered black rhino, and the densest population of predators in Africa. Return for dinner and overnight. NOTE: Warm jacket/cardigan recommended.
Overnight: Ngorongoro Serena Lodge
Meal: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Day 13: Ngorongoro Conservation Area After breakfast, descend some 610 metres into the crater, which is home to an abundance of wildlife and a photogenic paradise, for a full day of game-viewing drive with picnic lunch. Ngorongoro Crater, the largest intact caldera in the world teams with an abundance of wildlife permanently resident on the crater floor. Prides of lions, herds of Cape buffalo, rhino, giraffes, golden & black-backed jackal, zebra, cheetah, leopard, and the spotted hyena freely roam on the crater floor plains. Unmatched for its natural variety & breath-taking beauty, there are few places on earth where such a tremendous diversity of landscapes exists inside a region this size.
Apart from its wildlife riches, the crater is also of great archaeological importance, with the remains of some of mankind’s earliest ancestors discovered in the area, also a home to hundreds of bird species, refreshing in the small lakes in the crater floor. Return for dinner and overnight.
Overnight: Ngorongoro Serena Lodge
Meal: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Day 14: Ngorongoro Conservation Area /Arusha Depart Arusha
Today, breakfast will be served at the lodge. Check out after breakfast. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. And sadly, say Kwaheri to your wonderful lodge manager and the team. Drive to Arusha. Arrive in time for lunch and thereafter transfer to the airport for your onward flight.
Meal: Breakfast, Lunch
Important Information: -
Your passport must be valid for at least six months after your return date. –
Your Passport have two blank pages side by side for Kenyan immigration. –
Canadians do not need a visa to enter Kenya. –
Canadians need a Visa for Tanzania, and they can get this online www.immigration.go.tz
Contact your local health clinic or doctor to determine if any inoculations are required. - Anti-malaria & Yellow Fever protection are required. Contact your doctor or health clinic, Comprehensive travel insurance is essential. –
DOMESTIC FLIGHTS BAGGAGE INFO
Baggage allowance to all Domestic destinations is STRICTLY limited to 15 Kgs per person, inclusive of hand baggage and in soft bags no bigger than 24inches in length. If passengers have significant excess baggage, it is recommended they book a 'freight' seat at 75% of the Y class fare, which permits confirmed carriage of an extra 75 kgs. 'Freight seats' at 75% rates can only be booked on 'safari' routes.
Kenya Entry Requirements: Kenya has recently launched a new Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) system, having eliminated the requirement for all nationalities to obtain a visitor visa for entry. All travellers, including infants and children and with the exception of citizens of Kenya and East African Community partner states, are required to apply for the ETA online via http://www.etakenya.go.ke prior to their arrival. The ETA costs USD $30, with payment made online via credit card, debit card, or Apple pay. Travellers are required to submit the following for the ETA application: Valid passport (6-month validity from the date of arrival in Kenya, with a minimum of one blank page) Passport-style photo Contact information (home address, email address and phone number)
Itinerary details Inclusions:
❖ Arrival transfer from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport /to Kilimanjaro International Airport
❖ Met in our unique style with wet towels and ‘bubbly.’
❖ Complimentary Authentic Branded Safari Hat and safari essentials pack.
❖ Bed and breakfast Accommodation in Nairobi.
❖ Full Board Accommodation while on safari.
❖ Meals as stated on the itinerary.
❖ Park entrance fees.
❖ Evacuation Flying doctors.
❖ Services of a professional English-Speaking guide driver.
❖ Unlimited mileage on game viewing drives.
❖ Unlimited supply of bottled mineral drinking water in the vehicle while on safari.
