kenya & tanzania: big cats at naboisho, then zanzibar

Lion, very likely. Cheetah and leopard, a good deal less so, and no wild animal can be promised.

The Mara's annual predator survey, now in its eleventh year, counted 33 lions over a year old in Naboisho in 2024, against 47 the year before, at a density close to the national reserve's own.

Cheetah are the exception: the same survey put resident adult cheetah across the whole Mara at twelve in 2024, down from twenty-eight, an all-time low, though many more pass through in the course of a year.

Leopard live on this ground and are seen regularly, most often at dusk or on a night drive, but they are secretive and four nights is four nights.

The night drives are open to everyone staying; the walk is not.

The camp sets its guided walking safari at eighteen and over, so a younger teenager rides rather than walks. On foot you go with an armed escort, which is how walking is run across the Mara conservancies, and it is a slow couple of hours spent on tracks, plants and the small things a vehicle drives past, not a route march.

Both are worth taking up while you are on this ground, because the national reserve next door allows neither, and four nights is enough to do each of them more than once. Tell us the ages in your party and we will confirm what each of you can join before you commit to the camp.

Yes, and this is the easiest of changes to make, since the coast carries two thirds of the nights.

Four nights in the conservancy gives three full days of drives, which is enough for the cats to be seen properly rather than snatched at.

If wildlife is the real point of the trip, we would move two beach nights into a second camp, either deeper into the conservancies or inside the reserve for a day at the river between July and October. It works the other way round just as well.

What tends to fix the dates is the size of the camp, six tents in all, so for the dry months we would want to be booking a long way ahead. Tell us which half of the trip matters more and we will build it around that.

Better than most of this coastline, because the lagoon in front of the hotel keeps its water when the tide drops.

Snorkelling gear, kayaks, paddle boards and reef shoes are lent to guests, and the dive centre works from the beach into the lagoon itself, so a first dive or a refresher needs no boat ride to reach and the centre runs courses for anyone starting from scratch.

On the reef expect reef fish, rays, octopus and turtles. Visibility is at its best in the cool dry months and at its worst in the long rains, when the sea roughens and run-off clouds the water.

If anyone wants to dive, say so before you travel rather than on arrival, so that the paperwork and any course are settled in advance.

July to October is the window all four of our own pages for this trip rate highly, with firm ground in the conservancy and the settled, glass-clear sea that the cool dry months bring to this side of the island.

The cats are why you can be flexible: lion, leopard and cheetah hold on this ground right through the year rather than gathering into one stretch of it, so the sea tends to decide the dates.

February is the other month we would choose, hot but steady on the water and good in the Mara.

April and May bring the long rains, a rough sea over the reef and slow going inland, and March is not much better.

November and December green everything up, quieter and cheaper, with migrant birds arriving and rain in bursts.