35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Wonderful experience - safe and awe - inspiring
I was hesitant at first. A small company with so many other big ones with (presumably) better facilities and more experience. How wrong was I?
Java is headed up by Catherine who is a fount of knowledge - she's lived there for years and knows everyone. She knows how to make things happen, where to get the best experiences, the great drivers, the most beautiful views. She's smart, sassy and well-connected and hugely respected by the locals. I was literally blown away by the entire experience in Tanzania.
I was ill on the trip (nobody's fault - just really bad migraine) - and she made sure I was looked after, got the meds I needed and even managed to tweak our trip to ensure I didn't miss the highlights. We spent the day in the Ngorogoro Crater, and another at Tarangire, I lunched at Crater Lodge, stayed at Gibbs Farm, where we saw bush babies in the grounds - heavenly! The itinerary was perfect - brilliantly timed between go, go, go and rest periods in beautiful places to recover. The food was heavenly everywhere we ate too. Can you tell I loved it - lol! Book with confidence - and much excitement!
Just go do it!
I went on a the 3-Day Cultural tour with Heather as my guide. I had the opportunity to meet with a Maasai medicine men, go on a game drive of Ngorongoro Crater, learn bout the Iraqw tribe in Karatu, and went with Hunting with the Hadzabe! This was one of the wildest and memorable experiences of my life.
To top it off, it is great to know that my visit to these villages helps to preserve and promote their cultural heritage.
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
2 days weekend masai mara trip
For a two day trip I was amazed at how much we were able to do and see including the big five. Tom was an excellent guide whose knowledge and kindness truly enhanced the entire experience! will always recommend you to all the UN foreign staff working in somalia
BT
65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
a top of the bucket list experience.
Lots of open communications with catherine before hand, which made for agreat trip with only good outcomes.
Her choice of safari parks, and accommodations, just kept getting better, along with the copious amounts of great food, and smiling happy kenyans,
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
The most amazing safari experience.
Right from my first enquiry for a quote until the end of the trip, Elias was always in email contact and helped us so much with flight problems which were not his responsibility. ( Don't use Precision Air. They make up the flights and destinations as they go along)! Our booking was a bit complicated as I had to meet up with a friend from Australia, but Elias understood the situation perfectly and helped us to put our holiday together. I was so grateful that he advised us that it was the rainy season and booked us into beautiful lodges rather than tents.
Our driver, Robbie, was fantastic! He did the airport transfers too, and after a long flight it was lovely to be met with a smiling face. His driving was very good. I felt completely safe whether on main roads or on wet tracks. How he managed to negotiate all those ruts and pot holes and spot distant animals and birds at the same time was completely beyond me! He let us look at the animals for as long as we wanted but also made sure that we had time to see everything he promised he would find for us. It was lovely to be met by a smiling Robbie each morning, ( he was always more punctual than we tried to be), to go off on our adventures. And the animals we saw were amazing, often so much closer than I imagined they would be. My highlight was elephants crossing the road in front of us and practically brushing against the jeep to get to the forest on the other side.
So a big thank you to Elias, Robbie and World Air tours for the most perfect safari holiday. I would definitely recommend the company.
US
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Review about Nairobi National Park by Heather
Nairobi National Park is not one of the best parks to visit in Kenya. If you are coming to Kenya specifically for safari, there are so many bigger and more beautiful parks and reserves in Kenya with greater variety of wildlife. However, I had already been to most of the other big tourist destination parks in Kenya and I had an extra day in Nairobi, so I decided to book a day safari in Nairobi National Park and I'm glad I did. Although it's not as wonderful as the Maasai Mara, Samburu, Tsavo, or any of the other big parks, it is still a wonderful little retreat into Kenya's wildlife that lies just outside the main area of the city. I was a little disappointed with the variety of the wildlife. I asked my guide why we weren't seeing lions or rhinos and he pointed towards the more heavily forested areas where the roads didn't go, and he said they mostly hid over there. We did, however, still see a lot of animals such as giraffe, zebra, many types of antelopes, buffaloes, ostriches, etc. My guide also took me to an area where I was allowed to get out of the vehicle and an armed guard took me for a short walk in search of hippos. We couldn't see them, but we could hear them on the other side of the river breathing loudly and making their unique vocalization. It was very enjoyable. For a 1 day excursion within Nairobi, I enjoyed it very much.
US
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Review about Hell's Gate National Park by Heather
I took a driving tour through Hell's Gate National Park even though you can actually walk or bicycle through it due to the fact that there are no predatory animals in the park. I saw some zebra, giraffe, and a few types of antelope, but I wouldn't come here just for wildlife viewing. For me the highlight was walking down into and through the gorges. It was beautiful and very interesting. A maasai guide took me down and told me some of the history of the area. And I got to wash my hands in a hot geothermal stream that was flowing down the rocks. The beauty of these gorges is definitely worth a visit. There's a lot of geothermal activity in the park and before we reached the gorge, we drove through an area with a lot of plants that were harnessing that energy, which is a good thing, but it detracted from the beauty of the park. Once you got through that area though, it was nice. I was glad to be driving through because it started to rain right after I finished my hike through the gorge. I would love to go back though and maybe bicycle in the park.
US
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Beautiful Wildlife Haven
I visited Amboseli outside of the typical tourist season. The advantage of that is that I saw very few other vehicles/tourists throughout the park. The downside is that there's also fewer animals around. That being said though, I saw a wide range of wildlife and the landscape was green and beautiful. I saw many, many elephants, oftentimes very deep in the swamps. I also saw lots of hippos poking their heads above the swamps. There were also lots of varieties of antelopes, zebras, buffalos, ostriches, giraffes, hyenas, many different kinds of birds, and probably many more I'm forgetting to list right now. Amboseli is a wonderful haven for all these animals, and the landscape is very beautiful. It is smaller than some of the other parks in Kenya, but it is truly a wonderful place to see Kenya's incredible wildlife.
US
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Amazing and exceeded our expectations (which were low, admittedly)
We had visions of really roughing it if we go on safari.
The private game reserves have refine the safari experience so that people of all ages and conditions can enjoy safaris in relative safety, and in a way that preserves the natural environment.
Sabi Sands game reserve is a well stocked private game reserve. We saw the big five (elephant, lion, buffalo, rhinoceros and leopard) in two game drives, one evening and one morning. We stayed for three nights, and on the subsequent drives had time to see more of the big five, as well as giraffes, hippos, many different types of the deer family, hyenas, zebras, wildebeest and smaller creatures, and even had time to do some bird watching. The only missing animals were cheetahs and crocodiles. We even saw some monitor lizards.
Our guide and tracker were both excellent. On one drive we tracked the dominant resident male leopard out on his evening hunt for well over twenty minutes, and one another drive we got up close to a pride of three male and two female lions who had just crossed over from Kruger. The males looked like they had been in a recent fight and got the worst of it. Being out of territory and not familiar with our guide and tracker, they were very nervous and skittish, and there were tense moments for a while.
Drives were done in relative comfort, in an open 4 wheel drive with up to six passengers with the guide and tracker. Morning drives start pre-dawn, and evening drives finish in the dark, so we can observe game behavior both in darkness and in daylight. This gives about 4 to hours for relaxation in late morning and after lunch.
The Sabi Sands game reserve is located by an artificial waterhole (filled by ground bore water), like many other reserves. We love sitting on the porch of our standalone one bedroom villa and watch the animals come to drink at the waterhole during the day. Accommodation was five starred, ad we love the outside (but private) shower!
All in all, it was a phenomenal experience, and we would go safari again in a heartbeat.
Thoroughly recommended, and June was a great time to go, no summer undergrowth, so no snakes and other creep crawlies!
US
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Review about Kenya by Heather
Kenya has a wonderful, diverse wildlife and a number of different parks and reserves in which to go on safari to view the wildlife. The landscape within the parks is truly beautiful and mostly untouched by man.