11-Day Kenya Elephant Odyssey: Echoes of the Giants

Your Kenyan adventure begins the moment you land at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, where our team greets you with a warm welcome and a friendly face. You are transferred through the leafy suburbs of Kenya's capital to your hotel, where the afternoon is free to unwind at around 1,800 m above sea level, in Nairobi's famously mild climate.

Before dinner your driver-guide will brief you on the days ahead, from road conditions to what to pack in your day bag. Enjoy a relaxed first evening and an early night: the wild country beyond the city is waiting. Overnight in Nairobi.

After breakfast, the day is devoted to Nairobi's wildlife and heritage. Your first stop is the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust nursery on the edge of Nairobi National Park, where orphaned baby elephants are brought in from the bush for their late-morning feed. Watch them gulp milk from giant bottles, play in the red mud and jostle for attention as the keepers explain how each one was rescued and how they will one day return to the wild.

After lunch, continue to the Giraffe Centre to feed endangered Rothschild's giraffes by hand from a raised platform, then visit the Karen Blixen Museum, the farmhouse of the author of Out of Africa, set in gardens beneath the Ngong Hills. Return to your hotel for dinner and overnight in Nairobi.

Leave the city behind after breakfast and head south towards Amboseli National Park, a scenic drive of around 4–5 hours through Maasai country dotted with acacias and grazing cattle. You may stop at a roadside craft market along the way to stretch your legs.

After checking in and enjoying lunch, head out on your first game drive. Amboseli is one of the best places in Africa to watch elephants at close quarters, and the late-afternoon light, with Kilimanjaro rising behind the herds, is pure magic for photographers. Return to your lodge for dinner and overnight in Amboseli.

Today is dedicated to the elephants that have made Amboseli famous. The park's herds are among the most studied in the world, and many individuals are known by name to the researchers who have followed them for decades. Spend unhurried time with a single family, watching calves tumble through the swamp grass while the matriarch leads the way and great big-tusked bulls wander in from the plains.

Your guide will explain elephant behaviour, from the low rumbles they use to keep in touch to the dust baths that protect their skin from the sun. After lunch, climb Observation Hill for a panoramic view over the swamps, then continue with a sunset game drive as Kilimanjaro turns pink above the plains. Dinner and overnight in Amboseli.

Enjoy an early-morning game drive as the elephant families move out of the woodland and across the plains towards the swamps, with Kilimanjaro rising above them in the soft dawn light. Look out for lions resting after the night's hunt, spotted hyenas, wildebeest, zebras, Grant's gazelles and the striking crowned crane.

Later in the day, visit a traditional Maasai village on the edge of the park. Your hosts will welcome you with song and dance, show you inside their homes and explain how cattle, family and the land shape their way of life. Return to the park for a final game drive before dinner and overnight in Amboseli.

After a final morning game drive in Amboseli, drive east towards Tsavo West National Park, a journey of around 2–3 hours past the green Chyulu Hills. You enter the land of the man-eaters, a rugged, volcanic wilderness of lava fields, rocky hills and red earth, with Kilimanjaro still visible on the horizon.

In the afternoon, visit Mzima Springs, where crystal-clear water filtered through the porous lava of the Chyulu Hills bubbles up into tranquil pools. From the underwater viewing chamber you can watch hippos walking along the bottom and shoals of fish drifting past, while crocodiles bask on the banks. Continue game viewing to your lodge for dinner and overnight in Tsavo West.

Spend a full day exploring one of Kenya's most scenic and least crowded parks. Begin at the Shetani lava flow, a vast field of black volcanic rock left by an eruption only a few centuries ago, and peer into the Shetani caves. Tsavo West's elephants, often dusted red by the park's soil, wander through the bush alongside lesser kudu, fringe-eared oryx, gerenuk and Maasai giraffes.

In the afternoon, head to the Ngulia Rhino Sanctuary at the foot of the Ngulia Hills, a fenced haven for endangered black rhinos, where patience and a good guide give you a real chance of a sighting. Finish the day watching the sun set over the volcanic hills before dinner and overnight in Tsavo West.

After breakfast, cross from Tsavo West into its larger twin, Tsavo East, a drive of around 2–3 hours with game viewing along the way. Together the two parks form one of the largest wildlife areas in Africa, and the change in landscape is striking: the volcanic hills give way to endless plains of red earth under huge skies.

Enjoy lunch at your lodge, then set out on an afternoon game drive. This is the home of Tsavo's famous red elephants, which dust themselves in the iron-rich soil, and of large herds of buffalo, zebras and the long-necked gerenuk. Dinner and overnight in Tsavo East.

Set out early to explore Tsavo East's highlights. Follow the Galana River, the park's lifeline, lined with doum palms and home to huge Nile crocodiles and hippos, to Lugard Falls, where the river surges through a maze of water-carved rock. Along the way, the Yatta Plateau, one of the longest lava flows in the world, runs like a wall along the horizon.

In the afternoon, visit Mudanda Rock, a long rocky outcrop above a natural water catchment where herds of red elephants gather to drink in the dry season, and pass the Kanderi Swamp and Aruba Dam, both magnets for wildlife. Lions, cheetahs and the occasional leopard roam these vast plains. Dinner and overnight in Tsavo East.

Enjoy a final early-morning game drive in Tsavo East, when the elephants are on the move and the predators are still active, then return to your lodge for breakfast. Afterwards, exit the park at Voi and join the main highway for the drive back to Nairobi, a journey of around 5–6 hours with a lunch stop en route.

Arrive in Nairobi in the late afternoon and check in to your hotel. Your final evening is a chance to relax, look back over the photographs of your safari and enjoy a farewell dinner. Overnight in Nairobi.

Enjoy a leisurely breakfast at your hotel. Depending on your flight time, there may be a chance for some last-minute shopping at the Maasai Market for beadwork, carvings and fabrics, or a visit to the Giraffe Centre if you have not been already.

At the appropriate time, your driver will collect you from your hotel and transfer you to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for your onward flight. We hope you leave Kenya with unforgettable memories of its wildlife, landscapes and people. Kwaheri and safe travels.