Tailor-made
Local guide and safari organiser · Watamu, Kilifi County
Languages: Italian, English, Swahili, Giriama
No off-the-shelf programme: you tell me how much time you have and what interests you, and I write you an itinerary built on that.
This page has no programme, because the programme does not exist until we have talked. It is how I work when someone has several days, particular constraints, or simply does not know where to start.
The starting point is the days you actually have, not a package waiting to be filled: how many there are, where you are staying, who you are travelling with, how long you are willing to sit in a car and what you really want to see. From there I build a written proposal, with times and distances stated as they really are.
Step 1
You write and tell me what days you have, where you are staying or think you will stay, who you are travelling with and what interests you. I ask you a few awkward but useful questions: how long you can stand being in a car, whether there are small children, whether anyone has health or mobility problems, whether you have been on safari before. If something you have in mind does not fit into the days you have, I say so straight away.
Step 2
I send you a first draft itinerary: which stages, in what order, with what transport and how many hours on the road. I also put in writing what is not worth doing, and why. It is a draft to discuss, not a contract: expect to change it.
Step 3
Once the direction is clear, I check what is genuinely available for your dates: lodges, domestic flights if they are needed, vehicles, permits. The itinerary sometimes changes at this point, because what is actually available does not always match the ideal plan. If it changes, I tell you and I explain what that means.
Step 4
I send you the final summary: stages, approximate times, who is with you, what vehicle, what is included and what is not, and what happens if the weather or the conditions change. You read it at your own pace and confirm only when everything is clear. Nothing is left as a spoken agreement.
Step 5
We stay in touch after you have set off, too. If a day has to be moved because of the weather, because of the tide or because you are tired, it gets moved: I would rather have a programme that changes than one that is followed out of principle.
It starts with a message. The more you tell me at the beginning, the fewer rounds we go through later: exact or approximate dates, how many of you there are, the ages of the children if there are any, and the place you are staying on the coast if you have already booked it.
Itineraries that include lodges inside the parks or domestic flights need notice: in busy periods availability runs out weeks ahead. If you write to me at the last minute I do what can be done, but the options narrow.
I do not arrange everything directly: for some stages I rely on local partners. The written proposal says who does what, so you always know who you are dealing with.
The time of year you come changes what makes sense to suggest. In the dry months the wildlife concentrates near water and the parks give more; in the long rains the landscape is green but some tracks are difficult and the sea on the coast can be rough for days at a time. There is no perfect period: there is the period you are coming in, and the itinerary is built on that.
Trips at sea and in the lagoons depend on the tide, which shifts every day. When an itinerary includes activities of that kind, I look at the tide tables before fixing the days.
No sighting is guaranteed, in any park and at any time of year. If a proposal promises you particular animals on particular days, it is telling you something nobody can deliver.
If the itinerary includes nights away from the coast, the places you stay are named in the written summary, along with the meals included and the category. I do not use formulas like “a lodge of equivalent category” without telling you what the alternative actually is.
If you have already booked your place on the coast there is no need to change it: I build the itinerary around where you are.
This is the format that suits best when someone in the group has particular needs, because the itinerary is built around them. Tell me in concrete terms what is required: how many metres someone can walk, whether a ground-floor room is needed, whether a wheelchair has to fit in the vehicle, whether there are treatments at fixed times or food allergies. For some stages the answer will be that they are not suitable, and I would rather tell you that at the proposal stage than on the spot.
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It depends on three things: where you are setting off from, how many days you have and the pace you want to travel at.
A short safari is a first meeting with the savannah: it gives you the idea, but it compresses the transfers. With more days available the rushed journeys are cut back and there is more time inside the park, in the hours when the animals really do move.
Either way I'll explain the real travel times and the alternatives that exist, including when the honest answer is that a particular safari does not fit into the days you have.
Yes, and it is the most common situation of all. To get started, even just the month you think you'll be in Kenya is enough: from there we work out from the time you really have and the kind of trip you have in mind.
If the dates then move, we start again from the new ones. It is more useful to think it through from a rough idea than to wait until everything is decided.
When both formats are available for your dates I set them side by side: the price changes, and so do the flexibility over timings and the number of people travelling with you.
The proposal you receive lists only the options genuinely available in that period. I don't set out arrangements that I then cannot put on.
Write to me and I'll check what is available over the following days. I'll tell you what is realistic to put together at short notice and what is not.
Leave the coast at dawn and give the savannah the time to surprise you, instead of turning the safari into a one-day dash.
See the experience
You leave by plane from Malindi airport: the Mara is reached by air, not with two days on the road, and the days stay free for game drives.
See the experience
A morning on the water between reef and lagoon, on a route adapted to the sea, the tide and what the group can manage.
See the experience
Tell me how many of you there are and when: I'll tell you what's realistic and what isn't.
