The Safari Experience
The Safari Experience
Few journeys ask you to hold as much at once as this one: a country’s most difficult history on day one, a face-to-face encounter with mountain gorillas on day two, and within a week, some of the rarest, best-protected wildlife conservancies anywhere in East Africa. This 10-day safari moves from Rwanda’s terraced hillsides and the Virunga volcanoes to Kenya’s Lewa Wildlife Conservancy and the lion-dense plains surrounding the Maasai Mara, a journey built around both reflection and genuine wonder.
It is, in every sense, an ultimate wildlife experience: gorilla trekking in the bamboo forests of Volcanoes National Park, the rarest rhino and zebra populations on the Laikipia plains, and four nights in a private conservancy on the edge of the world’s most celebrated grassland.
Detailed Safari
Day 1: Kigali & Volcanoes National Park
A warm welcome awaits you on arrival in Kigali, followed by a briefing on the days ahead. After breakfast, you’ll visit the Kigali Genocide Memorial, the resting place of more than 250,000 victims of the 1994 genocide and an essential, sobering point of understanding for any visit to Rwanda. This is not an easy stop, but it is consistently described by visitors as one of the most important things they do in the country, a place for quiet reflection rather than a typical sightseeing stop. Lunch follows in Kigali.
From there, a scenic drive carries you northwest through Rwanda’s terraced, rolling hillsides toward Ruhengeri, the base for gorilla trekking in Parc National des Volcans. This small city of around 70,000 people sits just 25 kilometres from the Ugandan border, with the Virunga volcanoes visible on the skyline throughout. Though Rwanda was once a Belgian colony and French is widely spoken, you’ll find English spoken easily here too, alongside a warmth in the welcome that tends to surprise first-time visitors.
Day 2: Gorilla Trekking – Volcanoes National Park
After an early breakfast, a short drive brings you to the park headquarters for your briefing, where you’ll be assigned to one of the habituated gorilla families before setting off. The trek itself can take anywhere from two to six hours depending on the family’s location that morning.
Volcanoes National Park protects 125 square kilometres of mountain forest across the six Virunga volcanoes, and is home to the world’s most famous population of mountain gorillas. The climb itself, through shaded bamboo forest alive with birdsong and the chatter of golden monkeys, builds toward what is widely considered one of the most poignant wildlife encounters on earth. Nothing quite prepares you for the moment a fully grown silverback, up to three times the size of an average man, comes into view, remarkably tolerant of the small, respectful audience watching him.
In the afternoon, you’ll visit Iby’Iwacu Cultural Village, a community founded by reformed poachers who now share traditional Rwandan dance, storytelling, and daily life with visitors, a meaningful counterpoint to the morning’s wildlife encounter and a story of conservation success in its own right.
Day 3: Volcanoes to Kigali – Golden monkey trekking
Breakfast at the hotel comes first, followed by a transfer to the park headquarters for your golden monkey trek, an outing generally gentler and shorter than yesterday’s gorilla trek, through the same bamboo forest these playful, endemic primates call home. Lunch follows at the lodge before you’re transferred back to Kigali.
Day 4: Onward to Kenya – Fly to Nairobi
After breakfast, you’re transferred to the airport for your flight to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi. On arrival, you’re met by our representative and transferred to the Tamarind Tree Hotel, booked on a bed and breakfast basis.
Day 5: Fly to Lewa Wildlife Conservancy
An early breakfast precedes your transfer to Wilson Airport for a scheduled flight to Lewa Wildlife Conservancy. You’ll be met by the camp representative on arrival and, after a short game drive en route, transferred to Lewa Safari Camp.
Lewa Downs has been an exclusive safari destination for decades, made internationally famous when Britain’s Prince William proposed to Catherine Middleton here in 2010. More importantly, it stands as one of the great conservation success stories in the world and a working model for sustainable tourism, with the annual Safaricom Marathon held here each year to raise funds for the conservancy’s environmental initiatives. The camp itself is spread along a hillside overlooking the surrounding wilderness, with a buffet lunch served in the open-air dining room beside the pool. Relax in your cottage before an afternoon game drive with your dedicated guide in an open-sided 4×4.
Day 6: A full day Discovering the Lewa Conservancy
A full day of game drives across Lewa, which sprawls across the Laikipia plains and counts conservationists, photographers, writers, and the occasional celebrity among its regular visitors. The landscape spans mountainous terrain, open grassland, and river valleys, home to more than 350 bird and 70 mammal species. Wildlife here is both diverse and genuinely rare: reticulated giraffe, black and white rhino, and the largest resident population of Grevy’s zebra anywhere in the world. Leopard, jackal, cheetah, and lion sightings are all frequent.
Lewa serves as a vital refuge for the critically endangered black rhino and the endangered Grevy’s zebra, conservation work that underpins everything else the conservancy offers. Other activities here include horseback riding (an extra cost of US$100 per person) and walking safaris accompanied by Maasai guides, while those after a genuinely different perspective can arrange a flight in an open-cockpit biplane at additional cost, an eagle’s-eye view over the conservancy, its wildlife, and gorges otherwise impossible to reach. Dinner and your overnight stay are at Lewa Safari Camp.
Day 7: Fly to Maasai Mara Game Reserve
After breakfast, you’re transferred to the airstrip for a scheduled Air Kenya flight to the Maasai Mara, where the camp team welcomes you on arrival. From the moment you land, the landscape and its sounds announce themselves entirely differently to anything in Lewa. Settle in before your first game drive, where you’ll find red-billed hornbills perched along the acacia branches, gatherings of elephant, buffalo, giraffe, lion, and cheetah, wildebeest and zebra grazing across the open plains, and resident warthogs wandering confidently through camp itself.
Catch the moment sunrise spills across the grassland and lights up the flat-topped acacias scattered to the horizon, a view that has inspired filmmakers and photographers for generations. All meals and your overnight stay are at Entumoto Safari Camp.
Day 8 & 9: Three Nights Exploring the Masai Mara Game Reserve at Entumoto
Sunrise hot-air balloon safaris, photography excursions (available upon request), walks along the edge of the Great Rift Valley, or a visit to a Maasai family in their home, these are just a few of the adventures on offer across your three nights here. Wake before dawn and drift over the Mara in a hot air balloon, watching the wildlife pass gently beneath you, or sleep a little later and greet the sunrise instead with a steaming coffee, fresh orange juice, and something freshly baked.
Days on safari can be shaped entirely to your preference: head out at sunrise with a picnic breakfast and return for lunch, set off after breakfast with a picnic lunch instead, or pack two picnics and spend the whole day exploring the Mara’s wildlife from dawn to dusk, one of the loveliest ways to experience this landscape. Equally, there’s no obligation to do any of it: relax at camp with a book by the pool, or settle into a rocking chair on your tent’s deck and simply watch the plains go by. As the sun dips behind the escarpment, evenings often end with Maasai warriors at the boma and a dinner of classic safari food, plated rather than served from a buffet line.
Day 10: Journey’s End – Fly to Nairobi, fly out
After breakfast, check out and transfer to the airstrip for a scheduled flight back to Wilson Airport, Nairobi. On arrival, you’ll have lunch before being transferred to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to board your flight home.
A few practical notes: bring your passport for registration, along with waterproof hiking boots and a light raincoat. Long trousers and long sleeves help against the forest’s stinging nettles, and a pair of old gardening gloves can be useful for grabbing onto vegetation on steeper sections; most lodges provide a walking stick, which proves its worth on the way back down. A small waterproof backpack is worth packing too, for a light snack, water, and protection for your camera.
Once you find your assigned family, you’ll spend a permitted hour in their company as they go about an entirely ordinary day, feeding, moving, playing, raising their young, and occasionally wrestling among the juveniles, a genuinely unforgettable hour by any measure.
Every Trevaron safari is shaped around you. Tell us what you’re dreaming of and our safari designers will tailor every detail around your pace, your group, and the moments that matter most.
