kenya. on a medium sized budget. part 1.

i had a dream of going to kenya.

and with a lot of time and little chunk of my bank account, i made it happen.

this past february caitlin and i spent a week in kenya visiting the masai mara, lake naivasha, and nairobi.

organizing a trip within in europe is really easy.

you can trust that wandering on your own is generally fine and you can figure things out along the way.

in a developing or third world nation, i'm much more comfortable having a plan.

so with the help of my friend sheila and her niece, anna, we started planning our trip. anna lives in kenya and sheila had recently visited so we used much of their travel itinerary to assist us.

without those ideas for starting points, i'm not sure how this trip would have happened.

but now i can share those same recommendations with you!

we flew overnight from milan, through amsterdam, to nairobi. there we were met by a driver we had pre-arranged with the company we booked our first three nights with in the masai mara.

the driver took us to the domestic airport across town where we boarded a ten-seater plane to the mara.

once there we were again picked up by a guide from our company and taken to our home for the next three nights.

we stayed at a place called wilderness camp. included in their pricing is three meals and day and all your safaris.

they also have a camp called eagle view and a basecamp lodge in the area. you can split your time over these different accommodations if you wish. (the prices at these places are slightly higher, fyi.)

after our time in the mara, we were driven back to the local airstrip and returned to nairobi.

again, we had a driver waiting for us. we were headed to lake naivasha and had booked an airbnb on a sanctuary farm.

we had a recommended place in mind, but when i finally received a quote from them for our stay, we decided it was too expensive.

airbnb had plenty of options, but we knew that we wouldn't have a car, and we wanted to make sure that someone would be able to advise us on how to get around or hire a driver.

fortunately, we found this little airbnb cottage and the host was super willing to help us out. she arranged the driver for us and let us know that he could help us arrange transportation at other times during our stay as well.

we hired someone to take us to hell's gate national park and return us to nairobi three days later.

our final two nights were spent in nairobi. we stayed at this hotel recommended to us and it was fine. during the daytime it was safe to walk around, but definitely felt a little less so at night, especially on the weekend, when all the business people were not in the area.

i'll be doing more detailed posts of each of our stops, but for now here's a rundown of our expenses for 8 nights plus airfare in kenya.

i think overall this is a medium sized budget for 8 nights in kenya. we absolutely could have spent more, especially if we had stayed at more full board places for more nights. could we have spent less? honestly, i'm not sure. i'm not sure how or where you safari for less than what we paid.

booking our own domestic flights or arranging our own taxi from one airport to another might have saved us a few bucks, but it was nice to know these things were just taken care of.

thoughts on budget travel in developing countries? i'd love to hear them!