MR
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Review about Tsavo East National Park by Carlos Oliveira
A park that is not so crowed and where it is possible to enjoy wildlife experiences.
MR
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Discovering a high value safari in a wonderful place
A special Kenyan site where you have a good change to see a lot of wildlife. The Reserve has good activities and an adequate format of accommodations. The scenery is gorgeous, with such a wide variety of landscapes.
A wonderful experience.
We designed a safari for almost a year. East and West Tsavo seemed like a good option, so we booked trips for six months prior to departure. We spent the rest of our vacation in Mombasa.
The three-day safari surpassed all expectations. Lodges were excellent. It was strange to see all the exotic animals that walked past our bedroom window.
Guide / driver was excellent to find the animals. The first night we stayed at Voi Safari Lodge and the other at Ngulia Safari Lodge. I took about 800 photos and five hours of video.
I fell in love with Africa, I will return back there.
An Authentic, Accessible Experience
I was greatly impressed by the wildlife and scenery of Tsavo National Park. I was even more impressed by the accessibility.
As a working professional, my vacation days are limited. I had booked a week at a beach resort in Mombasa, intending nothing more than to escape the New York winter for a tropical beach while putting another country under my well-traveled belt. Going on safari was almost an afterthought.
After two days of beach, beer and sun, I decided to check out the wildlife. I asked the reception at my youth hostel for a safari recommendation. After one phone call on a borrowed cell phone and one taxi ride into downtown Mombasa to pay the fee (they took American Express) I was booked for an overnight Safari at Tsavo National Park.
We left Mombasa early in the morning, arriving at our hotel for lunch. I stayed at the Voi Wildlife Lodge, which I highly recommend! It combines modern amenities (including air conditioning: a pleasant luxury for Europeans but an absolute must for Americans) with incredible scenery. There are several swimming pools and an observation deck that stretches approximately 50m into the park and overlooks a watering hole.
The safari itself was very memorable. We saw elephants, giraffes, baboons, wildebeest, gazelles, dik diks, cheetahs, and we even saw a lioness in the morning! Our guide was a native Kenyan who spoke perfect English and what sounded to me like very good German. It rained, very briefly, as we were driving from Mombasa to Tsavo. Not a lot, but just enough for me to "Bless the rains down in Africa" as the song goes. Aside from that one drizzle the weather was invariably sunny and warm: 88 degrees for Americans, just under 30 for Europeans.
Tsavo was incredible, I can't emphasize that enough, but the biggest draw for me was the easy accessibility from both Mombasa and Nairobi. If I'd stayed longer, I would have included several other parks in addition to Tsavo. I would have liked to venture into Tanzania and perhaps checked out the island of Zanzibar. Sadly, I have a limited number of vacation days and a lot of world left to explore...
MR
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Review about Kenya by Carlos Oliveira
Kenya is in reality a marvelous place to enjoy safaris.
Review about Kenya by MattyK81
Kenya combines the amazing wildlife and scenery of a safari destination with the ease of accessibility. Flights operate to Nairobi and Mombasa from many major European cities. Coming from the US is a bit rough, but if you're not particular about which airline you take or where you have a layover it's still very accessible.
The only real complaint I have is that the brochures from other safaris looked better than the safari I took. I don't know if this is a case of "The grass is always greener" but I had a great vacation and an incredible safari!
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Review about Amboseli National Park by Kaylee Le C
We enjoyed Amboseli, but the animals were further away than at Tsavo.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
The most memorable wildlife experience of our lives!
We went to Tsavo when we were on our honeymoon, this is the first time we have done a safari and certainly will not be the last! We did two game drives a day, morning and afternoon, in between we were back at the lodges for our meals, all the food was beautiful, rooms to a high standard, staff very friendly and helpful, all the drives were very well organised, our driver was very knowledgeable about the wildlife and great fun to be with. I would recommend a safari for adults and grown up children only as the game drives are around 2-3 hours long with a lot of driving in between lodges etc. and young children perhaps wouldn't have the patience or be able to stay quiet around the animals. Overall it was the best holiday we have ever had, we saw all the big 5, made some wonderful friends and memories to last a lifetime and we will definately return one day!
DE
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Great wild life adventure
It was our first trip to Africa. We booked the unfenced Satao Camp. It was an amazing experience to be able to view the animals from our tent, comming to the water hole. All stuff at the camp are very friendly, brilliant service and food. We learned a lot about the nature and wildlife of Africa. We learned to love Africa. Our trip is more than a year ago, but we still dreaming of it and decided to go again to Africa latest next year.