Nay Palad Bird Nest is a single woven structure on a riverbank inside Segera, a private conservancy in Kenya’s Laikipia Highlands. It sleeps two, for one night, booked as an addition to a stay at Segera itself, down the track. Three storeys of farmed wood and branches, hand-woven by craftspeople from the surrounding communities, rise to a bed under open sky.
Elephants and giraffes gather at the river below at first light.
Arrival is timed for dusk, after the evening game drive, when lanterns light the structure and dinner is laid by candlelight on the top deck. The choice then is the enclosed bedroom below, or the open nest above with the river running past and Mount Kenya on the eastern horizon. Elephants and giraffes gather at the river below at first light. One night is all it is, and all it needs to be.
Segera runs to open savannah, acacia woodland and riverine forest on the Laikipia Plateau, with the Great Rift Valley falling away to the west and Mount Kenya to the south-east. As private land, the conservancy sets its own rules on how it is explored. Night drives, walking safaris and off-road driving are all permitted, and walks go out on foot beside armed rangers.
Nothing goes up the ladder but what the evening needs.
Down the track, the day builds towards the nest. Game drives cross the plains, walks follow the birdlife, and a collection of contemporary African art is set among the old stables and grounds. Guests keep their villa and luggage there for the night. Nothing goes up the ladder but what the evening needs. Much of what arrives at the nest is grown in Segera’s kitchen gardens.
Daniel Pouzet, the architect behind Nay Palad Bird Nest, worked with the design studio NAY PALAD to turn a sketch into something buildable. The result went up in 2017, billed at launch as the world’s smallest luxury hotel and largest bird nest. Its form follows a weaver’s, a cylindrical tower of farmed timber and thousands of branches, hand-woven into a thick rim that rings the open upper deck. Three levels are stacked inside it, and the whole of it was raised on site, not shipped in and bolted together.
Guests arrive as the light goes, lanterns burning on the stair and along the decking. Dinner comes as a picnic laid out on the top deck, candlelit, with champagne on ice. The bathroom occupies the ground floor, where the outdoor shower runs on solar-heated water. The enclosed bedroom above it has slatted wooden windows and mosquito netting, woven blankets, and hot water bottles slipped into the bed for the cold Laikipia Highlands nights. Above that, a second bed lies open to the sky, with nothing between it and the stars.
Breakfast arrives at the door while elephants work the riverbank below.
Sunrise reaches Mount Kenya first, then the river. Breakfast arrives at the door while elephants work the riverbank below. Giraffes move through the acacias in ones and twos. The view from the top deck runs a full circle over the water and the plains beyond, and three storeys of woven branches separate the bed from the ground, so the sound of the night carries up from a safe remove. The morning asks nothing of anyone, and the short drive back down the track waits until the last of it has been watched out.
Jochen Zeitz bought the land in 2005 and opened Segera in 2013. The conservancy has run since on a framework known as the 4Cs: conservation, community, culture and commerce. In June 2025 a founding population of black rhinos arrived, moved onto the conservancy with the Kenya Wildlife Service. Getting here means a light aircraft charter to the Segera airstrip, around 45 minutes from Nairobi’s Wilson Airport, and a short drive in from there. The nest is booked as one night within a longer stay, not as a room on its own.
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accommodation
One structure, sleeping two, arranged over three levels: a bathroom at ground level with a solar-heated outdoor shower, an enclosed bedroom above it with slatted wooden windows and mosquito netting, and an open deck on top holding a second bed inside a woven rim of branches. Families with children can share it.
activities
Game drives day and night, walking safaris with armed rangers, and time with the conservancy's anti-poaching unit and its tracking dogs. Segera's contemporary African art collection, spa and steam room fill the daytime. Helicopter charters run north over the Suguta Valley and Lake Turkana, or around the peaks of Mount Kenya.
conservation
The Zeitz Foundation runs the conservancy's programmes: the Segera Rhino Sanctuary, an all-women anti-poaching ranger academy launched in 2019, and the Tree of Life reforestation project, working towards three million trees by 2030. The SATUBO beading initiative supports Samburu and Turkana women, and six local schools are backed with bursaries.
Get in touch and let’s start the conversation. An initial consultation helps us understand what you’re looking for, whether that’s specific experiences, luxury touches, or marking a special occasion, and from there we’ll guide you through what’s possible so you can decide if we’re the right fit.
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One night, within a stay at Segera. Segera prices the nest as an experience added to the villa rate rather than as a room of its own, so it is booked alongside your villa nights and we confirm it at the same time as the stay. Standard check-in at Segera is eleven in the morning and check-out ten, worth knowing if the nest falls on your final night, because breakfast arrives at the nest and the drive back to the villa comes after it.
We would plan at least three nights at Segera around it, so the nest lands in the middle of the stay rather than on the night you arrive off a flight or the night before you leave. Segera says many guests stay a week or more, and the conservancy has the range of activities to fill it.
By air. The quickest way is a private charter straight to Segera's own airstrip, which sits at the entrance to the retreat, about 45 minutes to an hour from Nairobi and 55 minutes from the Mara if you are coming from there. Charters can leave from Wilson or from the international airport itself, which saves the transfer across Nairobi after an overnight flight, and we arrange the aircraft, typically a Cessna Caravan or Pilatus PC-12, and time it to your arrival.
The scheduled alternative is the daily service from Wilson to Nanyuki, about an hour in the air and sometimes more with a stop, then around two hours by road across the Laikipia ranches. Flights and road transfers sit outside Segera's rate, so we price both routes for you. Soft bags only, around fifteen kilograms a person.
Officially, yes. Segera's own brochure says the Laikipia highlands are free of malaria, but TravelHealthPro, which carries the UK's official travel health advice, and the CDC both put the altitude above which Kenyan malaria risk falls away at 2,500 metres, and the conservancy lies at 1,700 to 1,800 metres, so both class it as a risk area and recommend antimalarial tablets for it. We describe it as lower risk rather than malaria-free.
We are travel planners rather than medical professionals, so the decision sits with you and your doctor or a travel clinic, and the advice is reviewed, so check it is current close to departure. The cool night helps, but long sleeves and repellent at dusk are still the sensible habit, on the roof bed most of all.
Mild highland weather the year round: warm days, cool evenings and genuinely cold small hours at 1,700 to 1,800 metres, with only slight change between the seasons. The rains fall mainly from March to May and again around November, greening the plains, and the months between are dry and clear, which is when the roof bed is at its best.
Segera has no dress code and does laundry daily at no charge, so travel light: layers for the day, something warm for morning drives, a sunhat, sun cream, swimwear and walking shoes. For the nest, a warm layer, a head torch and whatever you want at hand at dawn is all that needs to go up the ladder, and the rest stays in the villa.
Segera takes children of all ages and is set up for them, with family villas that come with a private vehicle, babysitting, and a children's programme that runs from animal spotting and egg collecting on the farm to pizza making, fishing and film nights. The youngest stay free and there is a child rate up to the age of twelve.
The nest itself was built for two, but it has two beds, one enclosed on the middle floor and one open on the roof, so a family of four can share it with parents and children split between the two. Tell us the ages and we will say honestly whether the nest suits your children or whether it is better kept as a night for two while they stay in the villa.
The dry windows are the pick: July to September, which Segera prices as its high season, and again December to February, with the game gathered along the rivers and dams and the clearest skies for the roof bed, for night drives and for the helicopter flights north. The conservancy runs at a mild, even temperature all year, so the choice is about the ground and the sky rather than the heat.
The green months either side of the rains are quieter, with lower rates outside July to September and the Christmas weeks, the plains at their greenest, superb birding and the animals more spread out. Segera's rhino, its art collection, the walks and the farm visits do not depend on the calendar, so a stay in the green season loses less here than it would in a park.
rated five stars by our clients
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our approach
Every journey starts with a conversation. We take the time to understand your vision before we start planning.
Whether by phone or in person, we work with you directly to shape something that is considered, personal, and expertly delivered.
