The price for this journey is $10,999 USD per person, assuming double occupancy. (This is only for the Kenya safari; all Rwanda extension pricing is in the Rwanda tab above.)

• A $2000 non-refundable deposit holds your space.
• The second installment of $4500 is due by February 1, 2024
• The balance is due by April 1, 2024.  
• We will email you an invoice (via PayPal) about a week before each due date.

If you prefer to have your own room, the private room supplement is $1499 USD and will be added to your last payment. (Click here to understand why this private room supplement is necessary). We are happy to say we have partially subsidized this single supplement for you! Please note that we cannot guarantee you a roommate for this trip, and if you room alone, you will be responsible for the single supplement.

Price Includes

• VIP airport pickup and airport drop-off
• All lodging starting the night of September 1st through the morning of September 14th
• All ground transportation within Kenya
• Flights between Samburu and Masai Mara; Masai Mara and Nairobi
• Extra luggage allowance on all internal flights (an additional 17 lbs, bringing total to 50 lb allowance in total)
• All meals, starting with dinner on September 1st and ending with breakfast on September 14th
• All water, on safari and at meals
• All alcoholic beverages at the hotels and lodges (domestic beer, house wine, house cocktails)
• All safaris in a private 4×4 Land Cruiser (only 4 to 5 guests per vehicle)
• All National Park entrance fees
• All tips to guides, hotels, and restaurants
• All laundry
• Online photo album after the trip
• Triple carbon-offsetting for your time in Kenya
• Sundowner experience
• Personal SIM card with data for your use

Price does not include

• International airfare (although will be more than happy to help you decide on arrangements!)
• Any meals before dinner on September 1st
• Kenya visa (~$51 USD) or East African Visa if you are adding the Rwanda extension (~$100 USD)
• Travel insurance (required)
• Premium alcohol or if you choose to have alcohol while on a game drive
• Optional Hot Air Balloon ride in the Masai Mara ($475 USD for 2022; we’ll update you when we get 2024 prices)

Please refer to the Price tab for specific information about price & what is included on your journey.

The non-refundable $2000 deposit guarantees your space. The 2nd installment of $4500 is due on February 1, 2024 and the balance on April 1, 2024. The private room supplement ($1499) will be added to the final balance.

The optional Rwanda extension deposit will be taken to secure your spot and the remainder paid with the final balance.

For our American guests, we accept payments via check, credit, or debit card (via PayPal), Zelle, or Venmo. Lauren will send you these details after receiving your registration form.

For our guests outside the U.S., Lauren will connect with you about the best ways to transfer money.

We do everything in our power to do right by our guests. We are proud to say that in the wake of our COVID-related trip cancellations through 2020 and 2021, we were able to offer each of our guests the choice of a 100% credit, if not a full refund.

We’ve re-examined each trip and done our best to reduce the deposit amounts as much as possible. Upon your registration, your deposit immediately goes toward reserving your space for flights, hotels, and excursions that must be booked months in advance and are often non-refundable (particularly in Kenya and Rwanda).

Cancellation by our guests

The cancellation charges are as follows unless otherwise indicated on the detailed itinerary for each trip. All cancellations must be received via e-mail or US mail.

• Cancellations prior to 120 days to departure, money will be refunded minus the non-refundable deposit.
• Cancellations received 61 to 119 days prior to departure are subject to a penalty of 50% of the total cost of the trip.
• Cancellations received 60 days or fewer prior to trip departure will forfeit the entire cost of the trip.

If a trip is cancelled by RetreaTours

When a tour is cancelled in the case of force majeure, the Tour Participant will receive a refund minus any funds that we are unable to recover from any supplier.

You can see the full cancellation policy in our contract here. 

RetreaTours is Climate Positive!

We purchase triple carbon offsets for your travels with us—that’s from your home, through the entire tour, and back to your home again, times three! 

RetreaTours is officially a Carbonfree® Partner with Carbonfund.org, as well as a partner with Cool Effect.

You may have heard the term “carbon neutral,” which means that a company offsets as much carbon as it produces. With this 300% offset, RetreaTours is actually offsetting more carbon than we produce each year, making us “carbon negative” (or “climate positive,” which has a nicer ring to it!)

Since 2012 we’ve focused on making travel safe and easy for our guests; with our triple carbon offset tours, we’re pleased to make our trips as sustainable as they are memorable.

Please see more at RetreaTours.com/CarbonNegative

Vaccines

RetreaTours requires proof of a COVID-19 vaccine and booster for this journey.

No other vaccines are required to enter Kenya, but this is one destination where we highly encourage you to work with your local travel clinic or the travel department of your local health department (often a much cheaper option). (*Please note that a Yellow Fever vaccine IS required if you are continuing on to Rwanda).

• Please see the CDC’s general advice for Kenya:  https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/traveler/none/kenya
• Please see the NHS’s general advice for Kenya: https://www.fitfortravel.nhs.uk/destinations/africa/kenya

As you can see in the CDC’s map below, the Yellow Fever vaccine is recommended for Kenya.

It is good general practice to be up to date on your flu shot and tetanus shot; please discuss with your physician if this is right for you.

Malaria

As you can see on the CDC’s malaria map below, malaria is endemic throughout Kenya and preventatives are recommended. We can tell you anecdotally that we do not encounter many mosquitos during this dry season, but this is ultimately a decision you’ll have to make with your qualified travel health provider.

Staying Healthy on Tour

Please visit our comprehensive article, “How to Stay Healthy While Traveling…Naturally,” which addresses all of the most common travel ailments.

Safaris are not physically strenuous, but they do require a decent amount of time sitting in a vehicle.

We cut down on driving with this itinerary by flying, but we will have two drives between destinations (~5 hours from Nairobi to Ol Pejeta Conservancy and ~3 hours from Ol Pejeta to Samburu).

Our morning game drives can be up to 4 to 5 hours at a stretch (afternoon game drives about 3 hours), but we will also have time to stretch our legs for our boxed breakfasts and “bush” toilet stops. The roofs on our Land Cruisers pop open so you can stand in the vehicle, as well!

We have personally provided stepstools to get into the vehicles and even portable folding toilet seats to make bush stops more comfortable for you.

If you have any questions at all about whether this trip is right for you, please email us and ask!

Required Coverage

RetreaTours requires that each guest carries travel insurance that covers emergency medical treatment and emergency evacuation and repatriation. Please send Lauren your policy information as soon as you have it.

Suggested Coverage

We suggest trip cancellation insurance, as well, as you never know what obstacles life can toss at you leading up to a trip. However, we do not require this coverage, we only suggest it highly.

Please familiarize yourself with RetreaTours’ guest cancellation policy in your journey’s contract. Please read this article to understand a bit more about trip cancellation insurance and what it may or may not cover. “Cancel For Any Reason” policies do exist, as well, although do check to see what percentage of the trip cost they actually reimburse.

When to purchase your policy

Please purchase this insurance as soon as we tell you the trip has reached its minimum. Please do not wait until the last minute, should you need to use your (optional) cancellation coverage before then.

Where to search for policies

Below you will find some options to start your search for trip insurance. However, we ask that you carefully consider your choice in travel insurance. What works for some people may not work for others, particularly if you have any pre-existing conditions. Please do take the time to consider the best policy for your individual needs.

Squaremouth.com and InsureMyTrip.com are two sites where you can see and compare many policies at once, and you can refine the options by what coverage you would like. Squaremouth’s interface is very easy and intuitive to use, and you can easily opt out of trip cancellation coverage.

World Nomads provides policies for guests under 70 that includes trip cancellation options. Use the link above and pop in your info to get an immediate quote.

It may also be a good idea to check with your credit card companies, especially American Express, to see if they offer any medical coverage for travel.

We know these two topics are important! Do you know how we know? We see your Facebook page and this is what all your friends ask you while you are on safari with us!  Here’s the scoop:

Temperature

Yes, you’re in Africa. Yes, you’re near the equator. But, YES, it can still be chilly! Bank on chilly mornings and evenings (as in 55°F chilly, possibly in places). This is due to weather patterns and altitude (we’ll range from 2500 feet in Samburu to 6000 feet in Nairobi).

It will also get warm during the heat of the day (85°F+). This means layers, layers, layers. Feel free to bring light t-shirts or even tank tops and shorts for warm afternoons back at the hotels and camps, but please do bring long pants and a sweater or jacket (especially if you plan on doing the optional hot air balloon ride).

Bugs

You may have a vision of tons of insects and mosquitos invading your space on a safari. It just ain’t so!

We will be visiting Kenya during the dry season and mosquitos and creepy crawlies, in general, aren’t a big concern. We asked our September 2021 guests in our post-trip survey about the number of mosquitos they saw on tour; 8 guests said “zero,” one guest said “1,” and one eagle-eyed guest said “5.”  My favorite quote was “I saw NO bugs except a grasshopper and a funny rhinoceros beetle.” My personal count was 2; BJ traveled around Kenya for 7 weeks and his total was 7.

Malaria is still endemic in Kenya and you should have that conversation about antimalarials with your travel doctor (please see the “vaccines” box above for more information about that).

We say this not to lessen any of your precautions against malaria or yellow fever—we’re big fans of being well-prepared and taken care of. This is to give you a bit of perspective about what the actual situation is on the ground.

Please do bring personal insect repellent, please do wear it and/or long-sleeves and pants at night, and certainly, feel free to use any mosquito nets around your bedding (available at some camps). But please don’t let fear of bugs put you off a Kenyan safari!

Passport Requirements

Your passport must be valid for at least 6 months beyond the end of this journey and have two empty pages in it (three, if you are going to Rwanda, as well).

Visa Requirements

A visa is required for this journey, and we’ll give you further visa instructions along with the orientation before the journey. The visa is only good for 90 days from the issue date so we recommend applying after mid-July 2024. 

The Kenya visa is $51 USD and for those that are extending their journey to Rwanda, you can receive an East African visa for $100 USD.

The historic temperatures in Kenya and our safari destinations will range between 55°F and 85°F+  (12°C and 30°C). This will mean chilly evenings and early mornings to pleasantly warm afternoons.

We’ll provide a packing list well before the journey!  Please note that we highly suggest soft-sided luggage in order to fit inside the safari vehicles.

This journey includes an upgraded luggage allowance for our flights. Typically guests are limited to 33 lbs, but we have increased that amount to 50 lbs total.

During our time together in Kenya, we’ll be staying at a mix of hotels and luxury tent camps (true “glamping!”).  The camps are stylish and comfortable and each tent has its own bathroom with running hot water and shower. If you’d like to see our accommodations, please see the links below:

• September 1, Nairobi: Nairobi Arboretum, Radisson Blu 
• September 2-3, Ol Pejeta Conservancy: Sweetwaters Serena Camp

• September 4-6, Samburu: Ashnil Samburu Camp

• September 7-8, Nairobi: Tamarind Tree Hotel
• September 9-12, Masai Mara: Ashnil Mara Camp

• September 13, Nairobi: Four Points by Sheraton, Nairobi Airport

Wifi

The internet is accessible throughout this journey, although it may only be available in the common areas at our camps. We recommend staying connected with your loved ones via WhatsApp (which we will also use on the tour to communicate the schedule and updates).

We will be providing you with Kenyan SIM cards to use on this journey, so that you may access the internet when we are away from the hotels and camps. Please note that you will need an unlocked smartphone to take advantage of this.

Electrical Outlets and Adaptors

You’ll need an electrical adaptor for Kenya.  We highly recommend a Universal Adaptor such as this (for its Type G adaptor), which also has USB and USB-C outlets so you can charge multiple devices at once. 

We are more than happy to recommend international flights, but ultimately you will make the purchase yourself. Here is some important information if you would like to research flights yourself:

When must I arrive in Nairobi / where will I stay?

We advise arriving before midnight on the 1st at the very latest. You may wish to arrive early to account for any flight delays or cancellations or weather incidents at your departure airport.

If you wish to arrive early, we can help you with hotel reservations.

What time should I book my departing flight from Nairobi?

You can book your outgoing flight for any time after ~9 PM on September 13th, but your hotel night is included on the 13th should you wish to leave on the 14th or later.

What if I am continuing on to Rwanda?

Please let BJ help you if you are planning an extension to see the mountain gorillas in Rwanda. Often a flight into Kenya and out of Rwanda is very affordable and much easier for you.

Please write Lauren@RetreaTours.com for any questions you may have about this journey.  If you have not received a reply within 48 hours, please do check your spam folder.

You’ll be joined on this journey by BJ & Lauren, owners of RetreaTours–and we are so excited to show you the natural beauty of Kenya! 

Husband-and-wife team BJ Graf and Lauren Rathvon left the U.S. and have traveled the globe year-round since January 2013, researching, designing, and leading impactful journeys.

We are committed not only to our guests but to our host destinations and the planet at large. We engage with local businesses and guides to keep money within the community, and we triple-carbon offset each of our tours.

We invite you to visit our Testimonials page to see what other people have to say about us!  You can head to our About Us page to learn more about our story.