Guide Ken with one of our 4x4 Land Cruisers
Spirit of Kenya
- Office In:
- Size:
- 10-20 employees (Founded in 2014)
- Tour Types:
- Custom mid-range & luxury tours that can start every day
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $150 to $300 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
for a custom tour
Your request will be sent directly to the operator
If preferred, you can contact the operator directly
Reviews
UA
Email Oleh | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Reliable tour operator
We are grateful to Jorge (our tour designer) for scrupulous arrangements for our safari tour. When I've checked our email trail, I found we exchanged more than 70 emails starting from April. Jorge remained responsive, flexible and very supportive during the preparatory period.
During the 7 day tour we visited Masai Mara, Nakuru lake and Amboseli and everything went super smooth. As we were travelling with a 5yo kid, we paid attention to security and safety aspects first of all. And there were no such concerns during our journey at all. We were also lucky to have James as our guide who made our journey so exciting. He, like a magician, pulled some rare finds, literally, "out of his sleeve”. He spotted for us all big five animals and also a number of others which are rare to see. We also enjoyed watching lion and cheetah moms with cubs which was a dream of our youngest traveler. James is a very professional driver and experienced pathfinder. He also made our transfers and game drives less tiresome and more comfortable for our youngest family member.
We are very grateful to the Spirit of Kenya team for such amazing experience!
US
Email Kim | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Amazing African Safari
We had an 8 day tour through Lake Manyara, Central Serengeti & Maasai Mara. Overall the tour was 4/5 ⭐️ but I have broken down our tour below.
Guides: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
We had 2 guides, Francis in Tanzania and Thomas in Kenya and they were amazing. They were great about understanding our goals and ensure we had a great experience. Thomas specifically went out of his way every day to make sure we saw the great migration and river crossing. We were out all day and had an amazing experience.
Accommodation:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
We stayed at the most amazing lodges where the service was great & food was exceptional.
Lake Manyara: Mandhari Lodge (my only negative is it was a LONG drive and very far off the main road)
Central Serengeti: Nyikani Seronera
Maasai Mara: Malaika Camp
Tour Operator: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Overall we had a good experience booking with Spirit of Kenya. However, the communication wasn’t what I would have expected. We received the tour details including accommodations and confirmed we would like to book in a timely matter, paid our deposit and then were told that 2/3 lodge’s originally discussed were not available. This was frustrating as this wasn’t communicated early.
Additionally I don’t believe Spirit of Kenya was direct and totally transparent in the process and ensuring our goals were met.
IT
Email Andrea and Eva | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Beyond expectations
We did a 4-day/3-night safari in the Maasai Mara.
Anthony has been our guide for the whole tour. If we had such a great experience, it’s mostly because of him. Fun and caring, you can tell he is very experienced. We relied on him (suggestions on the best time to start the tours in the morning, suggestions on when it was best to move on to a different site) and this made the whole experience very successful. Big shoutout to Anthony! We saw zebras, giraffes, elephants, hippos, crocs, buffalos, wildbeasts, hedgehogs, hyenas, …. We saw packs of cheetas, more than once. We saw packs of lions, many times. And we saw the mighty leopard, which is very tricky to find and only with an expert guide like Anthony we could succeed in seeing it. Emotional.
Kudos also to the back office support.
Filipa supported us in the planning of the whole experience. Terrific support, we exchanged lots of emails to refine the plan according to our wishes. All very transparent, clear, and flexible according to our desires. She also remained available during the whole Safari, answering emails promptly in case of questions
ES
Email Toby and Family | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
A reliable and competent partner to fullfill your african dream
Jambo to everybody,
We had one of the most incredible travel experiences imaginable. We spend a lot of time researching and planing our trip to Kenya and were so happy to have made the best choice possible. From beginning to end 'Spirit of Kenya' made it clear to be the best choice for this definetly 'not' cheap way of spending your holidays ;)
Filipa, our travel designer was always there to support and safeguide our planning and buisness details so we never felt insecure of anything. Locations and accomodations included. Thank you for that.
But the most important and biggest thanks goes out to Mike, our guide and driver who stayed with us during these intensive 10 days of Safari.
His patience with the boys (11 and 8) during our long drives and the funny, straight up and very nice character made it a trip that we will remember forever.
Not to mention that we haven't missed a single animal i was obsessed with since i have been a lilltle boy reading my books or watching documentaries on the tv. This was like beeing beamed into it. Absolutley breathtaking and more than i ever wished for my kids (and ourselves) to experience.
Asante Sana rafiki Mike, you definetly 'rule'. :)
Sorry to be a little emotional but who wouldn't wish to end and remember a holiday like that...
Hakuna matata
GR
Email Lefteris | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
We propose unreservedly this adventure with Spirit of Kenya!
Amazing experience with Spirit of Kenya, excellently organized, with very professional and friendly staff and very nice accommodation booked.
They make even complicated tours easy
Since we don't travel to Africa often, we wanted to ensure we saw the most we could in the time available. Vanessa put together a tour with four different areas in two countries. We were able to experience the migration in Kenya and Tanzania, see the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater, and much more. The guides were knowledgeable of the local wildlife, and Nick, our first guide, understood photography and lighting enough that he always maneuvered us for the perfect shots.
Accommodations were amazing! Our favorite of the four locations we stayed was the Mara Bush Camp in Kenya. Beautiful location, amazing food, and a relaxing atmosphere.
I understand the desire of the guides to ensure you see each animal, but after days of rushing to each sighting - along with 50 other vehicles (some of these drivers could give lessons to hyenas and jackals on how to corner prey) - we told our driver that we had already seen many beautiful animals, and we wanted him to take us to where the people *aren't* to see their beautiful country. That led to a more relaxed experience.
Overall, I'm glad I chose Spirit of Kenya. I chose it mostly due to reviews here at safaribookings, and I'm glad I did.
ES
Email Ingrid | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Amazing trip
All really well organized by Spirit of Kenya, all went as planned
Guides were super collaborative and kind
we would recommend this tour to everyone
Email Lawrie | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Excellent organization and professional service
Couldn't be more complimentary of the way Spirit of Kenya organised everything for our trip. Whilst we were arranging and booking, Filipa was so responsive and clear in communication, even working out a way for the trip to work despite the fact that we were a little slow to book and availability at hotels was limited. Our guide, Mike, was truly excellent. Not only did he know his stuff while we were out on safari, he was so on it with getting the van cleaned and checked again the end of the day, organizing any optional trips and just generally keeping us in the loop. We were also thankful for how safe he was driving! There were some long drives but he managed it all really well. We really felt like he went above and beyond to make sure we were comfortable and he's a huge asset to the company form sure. Thanks for helping to make our honeymoon so good!
Email Nicola Harris | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Fabulous professional company
Our family have been so fortunate to have a holiday of a lifetime, which was very well planned by Vanessa at the ‘Spirit of Kenya’. Every detail from when we were collected at the airport onwards was faultless. Moses, our airport transfer driver, put us at our ease and happily waited for our late plane arrival. Our jeep safaris visiting four national parks were breathtaking, enabled by our knowledgeable guide Erastus. As a passionate photographer, ‘Ras’ , positioned the jeep to allow fabulous views of the wild animals, predicting their behaviour and giving us unparalleled opportunities. We cannot thank him enough for making this an exceptional holiday of a lifetime.
US
Email Logan | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Fantastic planning and an even better adventure
We booked our first safari through Spirit of Kenya and had an excellent family adventure. Filipa was wonderful to work with during the planning phase – very responsive, knowledgeable, and provided great options.
We had good luck with the animals (saw the big five) and really enjoyed the Melia Hotels – facility, staff, food and views that cannot be beat. We were grateful that Zebra River Camp was able to accommodate us given the flooding not too long before we arrived. The upgraded “tents” were hardly roughing it and the staff, food and animals (elephants, hippos, cape buffalo, wort hogs, and mongoose) that came by were great. We appreciated the Masai tribe members that kept vigil throughout the night.
A few highlights:
• following a leopard around while it was hunting for about 30 minutes before it walked under our vehicle (close enough to touch)
• the pride of lions that crossed a field straight to our vehicle then split and rejoined on the other side (close enough to touch any of them, including the male)
• a group of 24 elephants (with 5 babies) did the same thing (close enough to touch)
• multiple pairs of cheetahs (some as close as 3 meters)
• a herd of cape buffalo that meant business
• seeing 3 different pairs of rhinos in the crater (not close enough to touch)
• a dozen giraffes surrounded by hundreds of zebras and some wildebeests all running together
• a pond with over 100 hippos and a couple of crocodiles
• many different birds including bright pink flamingos
• many smaller mammals (warthogs, baboons, jackals, hyenas, mongoose, various types of antelope)
A very memorable experience was the balloon ride going directly over the great migration – thousands of wildebeests/zebras, a family of elephants, several hyenas and ostriches, as well as some lions on the hunt – and the fantastic champagne brunch out in the bush.
Bosco was a fine guide in Kenya (Nairobi to Masai Mara) and Francis did excellent work in Tanzania (Serengeti to Ngorongoro Crater to Arusha). They could somehow find/spot animals while managing the challenging terrain.
We highly recommend Filipa and Spirit of Kenya~