A few years back (May 2018) I, Katie, went to KENYA to go on Safari and I can easily say that it is one of my favorite trips to date.
One of the things I love most about traveling is learning about different cultures and interacting with the local people who live there to get an authentic experience. One of my best friends in college, Lily, studies animal behavior and she had lived in Kenya for 2 years studying hyenas after school. I always regretted not visiting her while she was there so I made a promise to myself that if she ever went back I would try and join her for a portion of her stay. Well a few years passed by and then one day, out of the blue, I got an email from Lily telling me that she would be teaching a study abroad course for the University that spring in Kenya and asked if I would like to join her for safari before her course. I figured this was my best chance to go explore Kenya with someone who knew the country well and would give me an authentic experience. Here we go – I WAS IN!
When I called my Mom to tell her the exciting news and she instantly begged me to let her join us. My Mom is very cool if you didn’t know this already, and she knew Lily well from the many horse shows and weekend trips home we would take together during college so it was an easy YES 🙂 We were going to do a mother-daughter safari in Kenya together!
We were ready for our animal safari adventure. That being said, our itinerary is very much the LOW BUDGET way to travel to Kenya and honestly I wouldn’t have changed a thing! I got dirty, saw some animals, and came back with memories of a lifetime!!
Here’s a peak at our itinerary:
May 2nd AM: Lily lands and does grocery shopping – we had a cooler that we packed and brought with us for many meals.
May 2nd PM: Katie and Kathryn land, sleep in Nairobi at hyena cottage
May 3rd AM: Drive to Tsavo West National park – the adventure begins!
May 3rd PM: Safari Tsavo West, overnight at Kitani Bandas. This was by far our most luxurious accommodation of the trip and a fun introduction to “bandas camping”. Our cottage was equipped with a sleeping room that contained 3 beds with mosquito netting, a bathroom with cold and hot water (this was a luxury!) and a little kitchen area equipped with plates, cutlery, a sink and a small cooker (oftentimes this means a propane tank with an open flame in a trivet).
May 4th AM: Safari Tsavo West
May 4th PM: Safari Tsavo West, overnight at Kitani Bandas
May 5th AM: Safari Tsavo West
May 5th PM: Safari Tsavo East, overnight at Sau Tsavo camp
May 6th AM: Safari Tsavo East
May 6th PM: Safari Tsavo East, overnight at Sau Tsavo camp
May 7th AM: Leave Tsavo East (early)
May 7th PM: Long day of driving to the Mara, park closes at 6:30 so need to be in the gate beforehand to stay at Serena hyena camp
May 8th AM: Safari Mara
May 8th PM: Safari Mara, stay at Serena hyena camp
May 9th AM: Safari Mara, horse ride afternoon
May 9th PM: Safari Mara, stay at Serena hyena camp – follow along the team’s activities by visiting their blog : http://msuhyenas.blogspot.com/
May 10th AM: Safari Mara
May 10th PM: Drive Nairobi, stay at hyena cottage
May 11th AM: Visit elephant orphanage of the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust & Giraffe Manor
May 11th PM: Curio shops, Fly Home
I mentioned earlier that this was a low budget trip. For a Kenya safari that can mean a lot of different things to different people, so to be transparent we tried to keep it to $200 a day per person. The biggest expenses are park fees (usually $65/day) and the car/driver ( $130/day for the group and we paid for fuel). We kept our food expenses cheap by grocery shopping in Nairobi and eating at local places for $5 a meal.
A lot of prices for Safari depend on whether you’re visiting a national park or a conservancy (conservancies are cheaper community-run conservation areas). All the parks have park fees, sometimes included or not when you book with a tour company or a driver. We chose to visit mainly National Parks and decided to hire a driver. A cheaper option is to rent a 4×4 yourself and stay at hotels outside the parks and self-drive game drives in parks every day. Fair warning though, Kenya driving is not for the faint of heart!! The highways are terrifying even as a passenger at times with only 2 lanes and giant trucks and buses passing each other within inches of oncoming traffic and not to mention the free range wandering livestock. We saw some flipped semis on the side of the roads on more than a few occasions.
Other price considerations are whether to stay at hotels or at park “bandas/campsites”. Banda camping is nice because they usually have little cottages with bathrooms and cook sites so it’s not as rustic as pitching a tent every night in a campground (which could also be fun!). Bandas were typically less than $100 a day for our group. Banda/camping can be more fun if you have a cook so you don’t have to worry about spending time prepping food yourselves. This does increase your budget though as it could be $100-$300 per person for a cook.
We decided to skip on the cook and honestly it was a great decision. It was fun making rustic dinners or finding local spots to eat. We feasted on traditional Kenyan food most of the time we were there which consisted of ugali, sukuma wiki, and nyama choma.
Some things to note:
Currency: It’s easiest to bring $100 bills and exchange them for kenyan shillings once you arrive. You can use US credit cards at many locations but once you get out of Nairobi, it’s easier to pay cash. There are also ATMs everywhere, but the exchange rate is not as good plus there are fees so you get more by bringing cash. The positive is that you don’t have to worry about running out of cash because there is almost always an ATM nearby to withdraw from.
Must bring mosquito nets or buy them there. You really don’t want to mess around with Mosquitos while you sleep!
You should get a shot for typhoid and get on anti-malarial pills. If you make an appointment with a travel clinic they can let you know all of those things!
My iphone is GSM, which means that I can take out my Verizon simcard and put a kenyan sim card in. If your phone isn’t locked to a carrier and it’s a smart phone it will almost certainly work (most smart phones are international). You can pick up some sim cards and “airtime” for your travels. With airtime you can buy voice minutes, SMS, and also data plans. It’s really cheap compared to the US.
You will want an adapter! A universal travel adapter with surge protection is your best bet. Then you can use it in the airport on your layover as well. Something like THIS should work.
Bring binoculars! Binoculars are more important than a good camera at times, because you’ll be able to see much further with binoculars than with a camera. Though hopefully you get close enough to animals to get good photos as well. (Though if you like birds, binoculars are definitely required!)
*Photos for this post are a combo of pictures taken by Katie and Lily on the trip