Lewa Safari Camp

By scheduled light aircraft from Nairobi's Wilson airport to the Lewa Downs airstrip, the conservancy's main strip, about an hour in the air. AirKenya's daily service leaves Wilson at ten in the morning and lands at eleven, and Safarilink flies the route daily as well; both carriers call at other northern strips on some days, so the published times can move by up to three quarters of an hour. From the airstrip it is about forty minutes' drive across the conservancy to the camp, with wildlife most of the way, and that transfer is part of the stay. The aircraft take soft bags only, fifteen kilograms a person including hand luggage.

If you would rather set your own timings, or fly in without changing at Wilson, we can put in a private charter, typically a Cessna Caravan or a Pilatus PC-12, and land at Lewa Downs at the hour that suits you. Lewa pairs well with the Masai Mara, because the same AirKenya aircraft continues from Lewa Downs to the Mara around midday. Arriving by road is possible from Nanyuki and the other northern conservancies, two to five hours depending on the start point, but only authorised vehicles may drive inside Lewa, so anyone coming by road is met at the conservancy headquarters and taken on from there.

Yes. TravelHealthPro, the UK's official travel health service, rates Kenya as high risk for malaria and recommends antimalarial tablets for it, setting apart only the city of Nairobi and the highlands above 2,500 metres, where it rates the risk as very low. The American CDC draws the same line, listing every part of Kenya below 2,500 metres, the game parks and conservancies included. Lewa lies on the Laikipia plateau at a little over 1,500 metres, well under that line, and neither source makes a seasonal distinction, so the advice is the same in the dry months as in the rains.

We are travel planners, not medical professionals, so we do not make recommendations about tablets. Which ones suit you, how they sit with anything else you take and what is right for a child are questions for your own doctor or a travel clinic, best asked with your travel dates in front of you. The non-medical part we can speak to: the highland nights are cool, which keeps mosquito numbers down but changes nothing in the official guidance, so cover arms and legs from late afternoon and keep repellent to hand.

It is a private conservancy that began as a rhino sanctuary. In 1983 the Craig family fenced off part of their cattle ranch as the Ngare Sergoi sanctuary with fifteen rhino, and in 1995 the whole ranch became the not-for-profit Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, now 62,000 acres. Today more than 280 black and white rhino live on the Lewa and Borana landscape, and none has been poached since 2019. Lewa also holds the largest single population of Grevy's zebra anywhere, 264 at the last count out of about 3,000 left in the wild. In 2013 the conservancy was added to the Mount Kenya World Heritage site, together with the Ngare Ndare forest that joins the two, the corridor elephants have walked between the mountain and the northern plains for centuries.

Lewa Safari Camp is owned by the conservancy itself and run on its behalf, so the camp's profits, and the conservancy fee charged for every night spent on Lewa, go straight back into the place. That pays for more than 150 rangers, and Lewa spends about half of its annual budget on the communities around its boundary: four clinics, a schools programme that reaches more than nine thousand children a year, and a micro-enterprise scheme for local women.

Quite a lot, which is the point of a private conservancy. Guided walks go out from the camp with the conservancy's own rangers, who track on foot and talk about the plants and the rhino work as much as the big animals. Night drives are part of the standard programme. Evening horse rides are for experienced riders of twelve and over, with a short competency form to fill in first, and evening camel rides with Samburu handlers need no riding experience but the same minimum age; the camp keeps only three riding camels, and both cost extra and depend on availability, so tell us at booking rather than on arrival. Bush breakfasts out on the plains and sundowners after the afternoon drive are built in.

The full-day outing is to the Ngare Ndare forest on the southern edge of Lewa, with a picnic: a 450-metre canopy walkway about ten metres above the forest floor, the longest in East Africa, and blue pools and waterfalls you can swim in. The forest is run by a community trust, and the only extra charge is its separate conservation fee. The camp can also arrange a behind-the-scenes visit to the conservancy headquarters, including the tracker dogs, and a visit to a Samburu homestead nearby.

Yes, and it is set up for families rather than merely tolerant of them. Of the eleven tents, two are family suites: two en-suite tents, one a double and one a twin, joined by a shared verandah, and one of them takes an extra bed for a third child under sixteen, so a family of five stays together. Three of the standard tents also take a third bed for a child under sixteen. The camp was fully restored in 2026, with a new pool with tiered stone seating, a fire-pit lounge for the evenings, and board games and table tennis by the pool for the middle of the day.

The age rules that matter are on the activities: horse and camel riding are for twelve and over, and game drives are shared unless you take a private vehicle, which we would build into the stay for a family with young children because it lets the day run at their pace. Tell us their ages at enquiry and we will shape the days around them.

The dry months. The camp's own high season runs from July to the end of October and again over Christmas and New Year, when the grass is short, the ground is firm and the game gathers at water. June, November to mid December and January to March are the shoulder months, and April and May are the green season, when the long rains fall. The conservancy's own records put the long rains from March to May and the short rains from October to December, with the heaviest of it in April, May and November; the short rains are light enough that October still counts as high season with the camp. The green months have their case: fresh grass, few vehicles and the rhino there as in any month.

Lewa lies on the Laikipia plateau at over 1,500 metres, so the days are warm and the early mornings are properly cold, and an open vehicle at first light feels colder still. Pack warm layers for dawn drives and dinner outside, serious sun protection because the altitude sharpens the sun, closed shoes for the walks and a waterproof in the wet months, all of it in a soft bag under fifteen kilograms for the flight.