Off Like a Herd of Turtles: Family Travel Blog

  Safari Day 7 Transfer to Tipilikwani Camp Maasai Mara Reserve This was a rough travel day. Not sure why exactly. I was expecting to cut the travel time by flying instead of driving but it felt like a full travel day and when we arrived at our new camp at 3:30 we had lunch and RESTED. Despite the exhaustion and mild air sickness the flight into the Maasai Mara was beautiful! We were the 4th stop which means we landed and took off from 3 other airstrips and got to the enjoy landscape and the animals from the air. Highlights were the incredible lush green grasslands, elephants winding through the land in herds and singles and a zebra that ran in front of the plane across the runway (!). We skipped the PM game drive in favor of resting and that was totally the right call We all loved warthogs Overall our Mara experience was slightly less grand than in Samburu. Perhaps the novelty had worn off, or maybe it was that the vehicle was a bit more challenging with open sides so we had to ke...

Day 4 transfer to Serena Sweetwaters camp in Ol Pejeta After Samburu, we drove about 2.5 hours to the Ol Pejeta conservancy for our next safari camp. The drive was great. The highway was in incredible shape- nothing like the descriptions of rural Kenyan roads I was prepared for. We drove through rural areas, villages with huts, a couple larger towns. So many new sights for the kids and Adam. Ol Pejeta has a very different feel than Samburu National park. There are so many more animals! Huge diverse herds made up of everything- elephants with zebra with rhino with buffalo with antelope - all together in large numbers- so so cool.   Mailing postcards! The equator And the landscape is different- reminded me of Yellowstone with broad grasslands with mountains in the background. I didn’t take many pictures of the sweeping landscapes and large herds - pictures don’t do these scenes justice. Great view, but I'd rather be outside:) The camp itself is great with a huge watering hole with al...

  After arriving in Nairobi the day before we headed out early to our first camp- the Elephant Bedroom Camp in Samburu National Park. I knew this would be a rough day. I usually build in a couple days of low key activities in a house where we control food and activity after a long haul flight to help with jet lag. But given the location and nature of this trip, we set straight out after less than a day in this time zone 9 hours ahead of ours (eek!). The big kids felt this hard and were really struggling the first couple days. Ollie got pretty sick on the bush flight and the first order of business upon arrival to the airstrip was an outhouse clean up- clothes unsalvageable. Ollie was an incredible trooper with no complaints when he then had to get in the safari car to get to camp. Plunge pool on our porch We were advised during our camp talk that the elephants would come right up to our tent and want to drink from our deck plunge pool. Sure enough, day 1, we are hanging out in the...