Ethical African Wildlife Safaris | Conservation, Culture & Bespoke Travel
Ethical African Wildlife Safaris | Conservation, Culture & Bespoke Travel
Kenya & Tanzania Signature Journey
10–14 days across the Maasai Mara and Serengeti. Private guiding, conservation lodges, and a structured Purpose Day. Designed for people who need more than a holiday.
Duration
10–14 days
Countries
Kenya & Tanzania
From
$12,000 pp
Group size
Private
Purpose Day
The Journey
This journey exists because of a specific problem: most luxury safaris are stimulating. They’re extraordinary, visually overwhelming, endlessly eventful — and they return you home more tired than you left. That is not what this trip is for.
The Founders’ Sabbatical is designed around the idea that genuine reset requires structure as much as space. Not a packed schedule — but a considered one. Dawn drives, long breakfasts, quiet afternoons, expert conversation when you want it and silence when you don’t. The Maasai Mara and the Serengeti are extraordinary backdrops. They also have a way of reorganising your sense of proportion that no boardroom or beach can replicate.
The Purpose Day is for guests who want the trip to mean something beyond the wildlife — a structured day with one of our partner schools or community initiatives, designed around a solo guest or a small group. Most people tell us it becomes the part of the journey they remember most.
Sample Itinerary
ou arrive into Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and are met by our Nairobi team. Transfer to a quiet, well-chosen hotel in Karen or the city centre — not a business hotel, somewhere that already feels like a different pace. An informal briefing over dinner covers the days ahead: what to expect, how to communicate with our ground team, and how to think about the Purpose Day so it doesn’t feel like an add-on when you get there.
A short morning flight from Wilson Airport delivers you into the Mara — the transition from the city to the plains in 45 minutes is one of the great contrasts in African travel. Arrival at camp, lunch on the deck, and your first afternoon game drive with your private guide. No briefings, no groups, no schedule you didn’t choose. The guide will read the land and the wildlife — your job is simply to watch.
Two full days in the field, structured entirely around you. Dawn drives before the light changes, slow mornings at camp, afternoon drives or a guided bush walk, sundowners somewhere the guide knows that no one else does. The rhythm is loose but deliberate. Wildlife sightings are genuine — big cat tracking, bird identification, ecological context from a guide who has been in this ecosystem for years. Evenings at camp are unhurried; dinners under a wide open sky.
A full day at one of our long-term partner schools or community enterprises near the Mara. The day is structured around what the school actually needs — not a performance of tourism. You might spend time in a classroom, facilitating a session on careers or entrepreneurship. You might work with teachers on curriculum planning. You might simply spend the day in conversation. Our local partner leads the agenda; you bring whatever skills and perspective you have. The guide comes with you and provides cultural context throughout.
A morning flight from the Mara crosses the border into Tanzania and delivers you into the central Serengeti — a landscape so different from the Mara that it resets your visual sense entirely. Wide, open, golden. Arrival at camp, afternoon drive into the heart of the ecosystem, dinner under the stars on the Tanzanian plains.
Three full days in the Serengeti — the world’s most celebrated wildlife ecosystem, and one of the few places on earth that is genuinely bigger than your expectations. We position you in the central Serengeti, away from high-traffic corridors. Your guide has an intimate knowledge of this specific area: where the lions den, where the cheetahs hunt in the early morning, which kopjes to climb for a view of the plains at dusk. A walking safari on Day 8 changes everything — the landscape on foot is a completely different experience from a vehicle.
A final morning drive — often the best of the trip, the landscape imprinted on your eye in a way that makes you see it differently. Flight from Serengeti to Nairobi or Dar es Salaam, depending on your international connection. An overnight in Nairobi if your flight is the following morning. Post-trip, you receive a concise impact report showing the outcomes of your Purpose Day contribution and where the financial support from your booking was directed.
What’s Included
Included in your journey
Not included
The Lodges
We select lodges based on your specific dates, group size, and priorities — there is no single fixed combination. What doesn’t change: every property we use is conservation-led, solar-powered where possible, and operated by people who have made a long-term commitment to the ecosystem around them. These are the types of properties we work with across the Mara and Serengeti.
Maasai Mara · Kenya
Small tented camps (6–12 tents) positioned in the Mara Triangle or private conservancies bordering the reserve — the less-visited, more exclusive side of the Mara. All are solar-powered, conservation-fee supported and owner-operated. They allow bush walks and night drives that the main reserve does not.
Central Serengeti · Tanzania
Small, intimate camps in the central Serengeti positioned away from high-traffic corridors. The central Serengeti offers year-round wildlife density that rivals the Mara, with a fraction of the visitor numbers. Properties are typically 6–10 tents, staffed by long-term resident guides with deep ecosystem knowledge.
The Lodges
On Day 5 of the standard itinerary, we spend a full day at one of our long-term partner schools or community enterprises in the Mara region. The school is not a set-piece or a photo opportunity — it is a real institution with real teachers, students and resource constraints, with whom we have maintained a multi-year relationship.
What you do there depends on who you are. Some guests run sessions on entrepreneurship, career development or financial literacy. Others work with teachers on lesson planning and curriculum. Some simply spend the day in conversation — it turns out that a founder or executive who has built something has a lot to offer a room of students who haven’t yet started. Our guide accompanies you throughout and provides cultural and contextual grounding that makes the day coherent rather than awkward.
We do not pretend this day changes the world. We do know, from years of running it, that it changes the trip — and often the people on it. The school receives a direct financial contribution from your booking. A post-trip report shows where that went.
This trip is not for everyone, and it’s not meant to be. It is designed for someone who has built something — a company, a career, a reputation — and who needs, more than anything, to step off the treadmill for a few days and remember what stillness feels like.
You don’t need to be entertained. You’re not looking for an itinerary packed with activities. You want unhurried mornings, expert conversation, extraordinary wildlife, and enough silence to hear yourself think again.
M.K., New York
Founders’ Sabbatical · Kenya & Tanzania · 14 days
From
per person · private vehicle throughout
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We respond personally within 24 hours — with genuine thoughts, not a generic PDF. No obligation at any
stage.
We respond personally within 24 hours. No obligation at any stage.
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