#65 best destination in the world

Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

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  • Operating orphan elephant rescue and wildlife rehabilitation program
  • Sheldrick Wildlife Trust has successfully hand raised over 200 infant elephants and reintegrated over 100 orphaned elephants back into the wild herds of Tsavo National Park

Maasai Mara

Wildebeests crossing Mara River, Northern Serengeti, Tanzania

  • Large national game reserve, named in honor of the Maasai people, the ancestral inhabitants of the area, who migrated to the area from the Nile Basin
  • Their description of the area when looked at from afar: “Mara” means “spotted” in the local Maasai language, due to the many short bushy trees which dot the landscape
  • Maasai Mara is one of the most famous and important wildlife conservation and wilderness areas in Africa, world-renowned for its exceptional populations of lion, African leopard, cheetah and African bush elephant
  • Hosts the Great Migration, which secured it as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of Africa, and as one of the ten Wonders of the World

Mount Kenya

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  • Highest mountain in Kenya and the second highest in Africa, after Kilimanjaro
  • Elevation 17,057 ft
  • Mount Kenya is the source of the name of the Republic of Kenya
  • Mount Kenya is a stratovolcano created approximately 3 million years after the opening of the East African rift
  • Before glaciation, it was 23,000 ft high
  • It was covered by an ice cap for thousands of years, which melted and has resulted in very eroded slopes and numerous valleys radiating from the centre
  • There are currently 11 small glaciers, which are shrinking rapidly, and will likely be gone forever by 2050
  • The forested slopes are an important source of water for much of Kenya

Lamu

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  • Small town on Lamu Island
  • Contains the Lamu Fort on the seafront, completed in the early 1820s
  • Lamu has 23 mosques, including the Riyadha Mosque, built in 1900, and a donkey sanctuary
  • UNESCO World Heritage site

Fort Jesus

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  • Well-preserved example of 16th-century Portuguese military fortifications located on Mombasa Island
  • Designed by Italian Giovanni Battista Cairati, and built between 1593 and 1596, by order of King Philip I of Portugal, to guard the Old Port of Mombasa
  • Although the design of Fort Jesus is an example of Renaissance architecture, the masonry techniques, building materials and labour are believed to have been provided by the local Swahili people
  • The fort was built in the shape of a man (viewed from the air) and is roughly square, with four bulwarks at its corners
  • Fort Jesus was captured and recaptured at least nine times between 1631, when the Portuguese lost it to the Sultan Yusuf ibn al-Hasan of Mombasa, and 1895 when it fell under British rule and was converted into a prison
  • UNESCO World Heritage Site

Haller Park

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  • Nature park that completed a transformation of quarry wasteland into an ecological area
  • Haller Park holds a variety of plant and animal species which serve as a recreation spot

Diani Beach

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  • Major beach on the Indian Ocean coast
  • Voted Africa’s leading beach destination for the fifth time running since 2015

Ali Barbour’s Cave Restaurant

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  • Set inside a 120,000 year old coral cave and lit by warm candlelight
  • Specializes in seafood, international & traditional cuisine
  • Reservation required, smart casual dress code, and they do not allow children 6 and under

Watamu Marine National Park

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  • Established in 1968, and one of Kenya’s first marine parks
  • Its coral gardens are a mere 980 ft from the shore and are home to approximately 600 species of fish, 110 species of stony coral and countless invertebrates, crustaceans and mollusks

Ruins of Gedi

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  • One of 116 medieval Swahili-Arab coastal settlements that stretch from Somalia to Mozambique, to the Kenya-Tanzania border
  • Since the rediscovery of the Gedi ruins by colonialists in the 1920s, Gedi has been one of the most intensely excavated and studied
  • The site of Gedi includes a walled town and mosques, a palace, and numerous houses, are made from stone, are one-story, and are distributed unevenly in the town
  • There are large open areas in the settlement which contained earth and thatch houses
  • Stone “pillar tombs” are a distinctive type of Swahili Coast architecture found at Gedi
  • Gedi’s architecture and an abundance of imported material culture including pottery, beads, and coins provide evidence of the city’s rising prosperity and trade over the course of its occupation from as early as the eleventh century to its abandonment in the early seventeenth century

Marafa Depression

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  • Vast canyon-like area resulting from soil erosion

Costs

Number of Days: 29 days

Best Time To Fly: July-Sept

Airline ticket: $1,534

Seattle -> Nairobi (round trip) $867
Nairobi -> Maasai-Mara North (round trip) $323
Nairobi -> Lamu (round trip) $199
Nairobi -> Mombasa (one way) $45
Malindi -> Nairobi (one way) $100

Food: $11/day x 29 days = $319

Entertainment/tours: $741

Airbnb/hotel: $75/day x 27 days = $2,025

TOTAL: $4,619