Depart the USA

Arrive in Nairobi, Kenya, and transfer to your beautiful Brackenhurst hotel, where you will spend the next six nights.

This morning, you will receive language lessons in Kiswahili. Kiswahili is the national language of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and numerous other East and Southeast African countries broadly speak Kiswahili. As the program progresses, you can practice your Kiswahili skills with Kenyan community members. Tea is Kenya’s leading export in consumer goods. At the Kiambethu Tea Farm, you will be welcomed by the owner, Fiona Vernon, who will also discuss the history and production of tea in the area. Fiona will share her family’s history as tea farmers in the country, charting their origins to the present day, and exploring what being Kenyan means to her. End your day with a visit to the Maasai Market, where you can ‘shop like locals’ and bargain over prices with market vendors. Buy Kenyan keepsakes that are mostly hand-made by local craftsmen and artists in Nairobi’s central business district.

The Limuru Cheshire Home supports girls with physical, mental, sensory, and intellectual disabilities. It focuses on providing residential skills training for these girls to reduce their socioeconomic dependence on others. Interact with the team of volunteers and learn about the resilient, faith-based work the Home is doing to care for girls. Next, visit a local Christian school. This evening, visit Brackenhurst Botanic Gardens, a vast indigenous forest. Guided by the resident Botanic Gardens Manager, Herbert Ongubo, you will take a walk through the gardens and forest to learn more about Kenya’s ecosystems.

Rift Valley Academy is a Christian missionary boarding school founded in Kijabe in 1906. Over 500 children from a variety of ethnic backgrounds attend the school. Continue to Lari, where over 100 people were killed and scores of others injured when Mau Mau freedom fighters attacked the area in March 1953. Many Kenyan people regard the Lari massacre as a day that contributed to a change in the country’s political landscape and led to Kenya gaining its full sovereignty from Britain in 1963. Listen to veterans of the Mau Mau movement who are working towards reconciling the communities that fought against each other.

Visit the Giraffe Centre, a non-profit aimed at providing conservation education for the youth of Kenya and to save the endangered Rothschild Giraffe, one of the most endangered giraffe subspecies, with only a few hundred members in the wild. Next, visit the Elephant Orphanage, which has been rearing orphaned elephants and rhinos and returning them to the wild since it was established in 1977. Next, visit the Karen Blixen Museum, home of the famous author, Karen Blixen (pen name Isak Denisen). Blixen’s memoir, Out of Africa (1937), was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film of the same name. Your last visit of the day is to KAZURI, which means ‘small and beautiful’ in Kiswahili, which began in 1975 as a tiny workshop experimenting with making handmade beads. The factory started with two Kenyan women who discovered that there were many single mothers in great need of regular employment. Driven by the desire to provide opportunities, Kazuri has grown, and today, it has a large workforce skilled in making handmade jewelry.

The National Museums of Kenya works to collect, preserve, and study Kenya’s cultural and natural heritage. Visit the National Museums of Kenya, where you can see some of the exhibits on display and get a glimpse into the country’s cultural and natural histories.

Located adjacent to the Maasai Mara National Reserve, the Naboisho Conservancy is a ground-breaking tourism project benefiting conservation and community. The conservancy is home to one of the highest densities of lions in Africa and some of the rarest animals in Kenya. With its high concentration of wildlife, generous personal space, and freedom, visitors enjoy exceptional wildlife encounters. This private conservancy strictly monitors the number of tourists who enter the area, reducing the number of vehicles and the human impact on the environment and wildlife. Enjoy an evening game drive before checking into your tent camp accommodations for dinner and overnight.

This morning, enjoy a game drive at the Maasai Mara National Reserve. Later, visit Maa Trust, built to support conservation through the sustainable development of communities in the Maasai Mara. The Trust works in three main areas, which have been identified by Maasai communities as their priorities: Income Generation, Education and Outreach, Infrastructure and Water. During your time in the Maasai Mara, you will have the opportunity to engage with the Maa Trust’s initiatives. This evening, enjoy the Maasai Village Walk. The Maasai are an iconic, nomadic people in Kenya and Tanzania. You will have the opportunity to visit a Maasai village where you can walk and engage with Maasai elders, warriors, women and children. This will give you insight into the Maasai’s nomadic ways of life, their family structures, as well as the ways in which they relate to wider society.

Transfer back to Nairobi and enjoy lunch at Narok. This evening, you are free to enjoy Brackenhurst.

Enjoy visits to Don Bosco Church and All Saints Cathedral. Enjoy a farewell lunch at Nyama Mama before heading to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for your return flight home.

Due to flight options, you may have an overnight on your return to the USA.