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Safari

Your Anvir Host meets you at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and transfers you privately to your hotel. Three weeks of East Africa are ahead of you. A welcome dinner this evening, and an early night. Tomorrow the Mara opens the journey.

A morning flight into the Maasai Mara, the landscape that anchors this entire journey. Two full days here: dawn game drives as the light breaks over the plains, afternoon drives as the predators become more active, and the evenings watching the horizon drain of colour. The Mara sets the tone for everything that follows.

Fly north to Nanyuki, where Mount Kenya rises above the equator and the Laikipia plateau stretches away in every direction. Ol Pejeta Conservancy holds the world's last two northern white rhinos and one of Africa's most carefully considered conservation landscapes. Two days of game drives alongside chimpanzee sanctuary visits, and the space and silence of the highlands, which feel like a different Kenya from the Mara entirely.

A road transfer south from Nanyuki back to Nairobi, through the Central Highlands and the changing landscape of the Rift Valley escarpment. On arrival in Nairobi, an afternoon visit to the Giraffe Centre, where you can hand-feed endangered Rothschild giraffes in the open air. This evening, dinner at a local restaurant, a last Nairobi night before the coast begins tomorrow.

Transfers to Nairobi Railway Station for the Madaraka Express, the modern standard gauge railway that connects Nairobi to the coast in premium-class comfort. The journey takes you through the Athi Plains, across the Tsavo wilderness, and down towards the Indian Ocean, watching Kenya change from highland plateau to coastal lowland through the train window. Arrive in Mombasa by afternoon. Transfers to your hotel and a relaxed evening on the coast.

A full day exploring Mombasa with a knowledgeable local guide. Fort Jesus, built by the Portuguese in 1593, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most complete colonial fortifications anywhere in Africa. From there into Old Town Mombasa: narrow streets, carved balconies, Arab and Indian and Swahili architecture layered over centuries of merchant history. Your guide brings context to what you see, connecting the present city to the trading networks and cultural crossings that built it.

A drive south along the coast to Diani Beach, one of the finest stretches of shoreline in East Africa. White coral sand, warm turquoise water, and behind the beach the coastal forest where black and white colobus monkeys move through the canopy. Three days here at the pace the coast insists on: unhurried, warm, and deeply restorative after the weeks that preceded it.

A flight across to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's largest city and its commercial heart on the Indian Ocean coast. Two days exploring the National Museum, the vast Kariakoo Market, and the Kivukoni waterfront where the ferry traffic and the dhows give the city its essential character. Your guide connects the layers of Swahili, Arab, Indian, and colonial history that have shaped Dar into what it is today.

The ferry crossing from Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar takes just over two hours and the arrival into Stone Town by sea is one of the finest approaches to any city in the Indian Ocean world. Stone Town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site: its streets, its buildings, and the life lived in them carry the accumulated weight of Arab, Indian, African, and Portuguese history across six centuries of trade. Two days with a local guide who knows the stories behind the facades, the doors, and the alleyways that most visitors walk past.

A transfer to Zanzibar's north coast for three final days. The Indian Ocean here is at its most turquoise and the sand is at its whitest. Three days to sit with everything the last three weeks have given you: the wildlife, the history, the landscapes, and the people. The coast asks nothing of you and offers everything.

After a final slow morning on the island, a private transfer to Zanzibar Airport for your onward flight. Nineteen days. Three countries. The Mara, the highlands, the Madaraka Express, the coast, the port cities, and the Indian Ocean. East Africa in its full depth.