Planning Your Safari

These are more exclusive, usually catering for less than 30 guests and offer impressive accommodation with higher standards of décor, service and cuisine. Prices are also higher and most guests arrive by air, flying in on light aircraft to avoid long journeys over bumpy roads. Guests are taken on game drives in 4×4 safari vehicles by driver-guides who know the area well.

These safari camps are small and exclusive and designed to have minimal impact on the environment through eco-friendly design and operating systems while still offering comfortable accommodation and high standards of hospitality. The guest tents have proper beds and ensuite bathrooms with safari showers and flush toilets. They are ideal for guests who wish to get close to nature and to enjoy an authentic safari experience with excellent guides. Our own award-winning Porini Camps located in exclusive wildlife conservancies are a good example. The advantage of staying in a conservancy is that you have all the wildlife but few other tourist vehicles.

These are popular with the mass-market tour companies operating minibus tours by road and have the type of facilities expected of hotels, with bars, dining rooms, swimming pools. They usually accommodate over 100 guests and can be a little impersonal but offer a lower-priced option for those on a limited budget.

These camps accommodate up to 18 guests and feature accommodation in small 2-man dome tents. Each tent has its own adjoining bathroom cubicle with safari shower and flush toilet. It is “real camping” with sleeping bags on a mattress on the floor. The camps are designed to offer the same high quality wildlife viewing experience provided by the top-end safari camps, with 4×4 game viewing escorted by top class guides and in exclusive wildlife conservancies away from the tourist minibuses, but at a hugely reduced price. For those for whom the wildlife safari experience is more important than the accommodation, and who are prepared to sleep in small tents in sleeping bags with an element of “roughing it”, this gives an opportunity for an exceptional wildlife experience which is more exclusive, and with high quality guiding, but at a fraction of the price.

The National Parks and Game Reserves have been set aside by the government for the protection of wildlife and are open to the public. Tourist numbers can be dense within the most popular parks and in the high season there are often a large number of visitors in any one day. It is not uncommon to share an animal sighting with several other tourist vehicles. There are also restrictions in place within some of the National Parks prohibiting open sided vehicles, walks and night game drives inside the park.

Recently wildlife conservancies have been set up on community-owned land adjacent to the parks. The conservancy concept was pioneered by Gamewatchers Safaris and is a form of sustainable tourism. The Conservancies which Gamewatchers is supporting are on large tracts of community owned land made up of individual parcels leased from the community landowners and set aside exclusively for wildlife adjacent to National Parks in areas which are unfenced. These Wildlife Conservancies provide additional habitat and a safe haven for the animals. The communities receive a guaranteed monthly income offering an alternative to farming and animal husbandry and also have opportunities for livelihoods, working in the camps and as Conservancy rangers. The conservancy is managed by a warden and rangers to protect the animals and virtually no poaching occurs as the community is invested in protecting the animals.

A conservancy safari offers a private and more exclusive safari experience away from masses of tourist vehicles. With a limit of only 1 tent per 700 acres, they have all the wildlife without the crowds!

Most of the mainstream tour companies with tours to Kenya feature road safaris with transport in minivans which drive overland between the parks. A minibus tour can involve lengthy drives of over 5 hours in duration to get to the park and then you will normally go on your game drives in the same vehicle and with the same driver. These are the type of safaris offered by the mass-market tour companies and are what the majority of visitors to Kenya do. These itineraries usually include stays at the bigger tourist lodges and are an option for people looking for the cheapest tours available. Often such itineraries try to cram in too many places and involve a lot of driving from place to place with not enough time available for viewing wildlife and we recommend against trying to do this. While minibuses are fine for city transfers and for driving on the main highways they are not ideal for game-viewing on bush tracks in the parks and as an alternative on our road safaris we recommend up-grading to a 4×4 safari vehicle instead of a minivan.

We recommend flying to the parks from Nairobi to avoid long and arduous journeys driving for hours across the country on roads which are often in a poor state of repair and full of potholes. The standards of driving by other road users in East Africa can be alarming as some drivers of lorries and buses seem to be unfamiliar with any form of highway code and their vehicles often look very unroadworthy to visitors from overseas!

There are several high quality air charter companies in Kenya operating daily scheduled flights by light aircraft to the parks and reserves. As well as being a safer way to travel, flying means you do not waste half a day driving from one park to another and so you have more time for game-viewing. When you fly in to the parks you will be met at the airstrip by a vehicle from the camp where you are staying and you will go on game drives in the camp’s 4×4 safari vehicle with a qualified and experienced driver-guide who knows the area far better than any visiting drivers and is familiar with the latest wildlife movements.

A choice of safaris to the Porini Camps in exclusive wildlife conservancies in some of Kenya’s best places for big game. Read more about our Porini Camps, or find out more information on our safari itineraries combining the Porini Camps.

To Kenya’s leading wildlife camps and small luxury lodges. View our collection of Fly-in Safaris.

To the bigger tourist lodges and larger tented camps – for a lower-priced budget option. View our selection of safari tours.

For something a bit different, our collection includes birdwatching safaris, camping safaris and walking safaris. Read more about our Specialist Safaris