Planning
Before you talk to any travel professionals, you need to have a general idea of your interests, level of comfort, and fly vs drive. These topics will simplify your planning. Don't worry about specific locations, camps, timing of migrations and rainy seasons yet - that's way too complicated and overwhelming - save that for the travel professional to advise.
What are your interests?Start reading up on travel to Africa. A Fodors or similar guide is a good start, supplemented by the internet. You'll soon have some things that are higher priority for you, and other things you don't care about. For example, I absolutely wanted to see a wide variety of wildlife (particularly elephants, big cats and the mountain gorillas), and experience local culture. I didn't really care about beach resorts, hot air ballooning, big cities or professional photography. Those were my priorities, but they may not be yours.
What type of experience & comfort level?Then you need to decide the type of experience you want, particularly while out on safari. The main choices are:
- Lodge: more like a hotel, often 50-100 guests. Meals are restaurant style with separate tables. Often power plugs in the rooms and maybe running water in the shower. Room itself is a hybrid tent and cabin. Game drives and food often included, drinks and optional excursions extra. Offer 2-3 choices for food (I think you can also specify dietary restrictions and allergies).
- Tented Camp: glamping. Canvas tents, regular beds, attached bathrooms with a bucket shower (which isn't bad: you tell them when you want a shower, typically before or after dinner after a dusty, sweaty day. They heat up a big bucket of water, attach it outside the tent, and tell you when it's ready. You turn a lever on your side to get the water flowing, get wet, then shut it off. Lather up, then turn it back on to rinse off). Solar powered lights in the rooms, but generally you charge up your camera batteries in the main tent. About 5-20 guests, more fixed schedule, everything is included. Food actually better, I thought, but usually one choice for each meal (unless you specify dietary or allergies ahead of time). Same game drives.
- Adventure Camping: small tent with sleeping bags. Go somewhere else for bathroom and shower. I think basic food and game drives included.
- Mobile camping? I think this is another option similar to #3, they set up camp in a new location each night.
A mix is fine, too. I did mostly #2, tented camps and once #1, a lodge. I preferred the experience of the tented camp, the smaller group made it feel like a more authentic experience. The lodge was a nice break in the middle of the itinerary, to take better showers and charge up all batteries. I'm not a big camper at home, so #3 and #4 would have annoyed me.Fly or drive between camps?You can take short flights on prop planes between camps (I highly recommend this), or be driven between camps, I believe 4-6 hours, on rural roads.
Travel Professional
Now you're ready to talk to someone, ideally this is 9 months out or more so you have the maximum choices - these places are small and get booked. You absolutely want someone who specializes in Africa, and you don't want to do it yourself, even if that's your normal routine. It's a whole 'nuther ball game for travel planning. You want the entire itinerary set from the time you land in Africa to when you leave, and this is most common. You can work with a travel agent or an operator. Operators own camps or lodges in Africa, arrange all the logistics, and will arrange for your stays in areas they don't have a presence. You want an operator that's well established. Fodors has a good list, and these same 10-15 companies showed up in my internet research too. I contacted several via their websites, and ended up using Porini (who had a really helpful agent based in the US, Julie Roggow, who had been to every camp herself). I really liked Porini: they had an eco-friendly / low impact on the land approach, often located on private conservancies run by the local Masai tribes, and use open sided jeeps (other camps also used small buses with pop up tops, so you had to stand to see or take pictures). These are all things I appreciated better once I arrived.
They will ask you for your interests, and preferred type of experience. Then come back with suggestions.
The typical itinerary seems to be 1 night in Nairobi, then 2 or 3 nights in each safari camp, 3 locations. I thought 2 nights in each camp was plenty, by the end of each camp stay I felt like I'd seen everything (but if I go again, I'd do 3 nights or more in Mara). I also think 6-7 nights total on safari is plenty: any more you'd get burnt out. Different locations are good because they are in different terrains, with different wildlife.
The three main areas I did in Kenya were Amboseli, Samburu and Masai Mara (everyone seems to do Mara). Mara is on the Kenya side, the Serengeti is on the Tanzanian side, and The Great Migration is between the two. Other Kenya areas my fellow travelers did were Tsavo, Meru, and Laikipia (next to Samburu). I also went to Rwanda for the mountain gorillas - suggest doing anything involving hiking or altitude at the end of the trip so you've adjusted to the time zone and higher altitude (Kenya is 4-6,000 feet I believe, and the Rwanda part is 6-8,000). Other people I met also visited Tanzania, hiked Mt. Kilimanjaro, or ended with a beach vacation (Zanzibar, Seychelles, Mauritius, etc).
Book Your Trip and Next Steps
Then you agree on your itinerary, and pay for it up front (they might have other payment options that cost a little more).
You'll book your flights (I used miles). There are no direct flights from the US to Africa. You typically fly to Europe (often London, Paris or Amsterdam) or to the Middle East (Dubai is common). Some folks stayed a few days in Europe or the Middle East before flying down to Africa.
Figure out your packing and camera strategy. Your travel professional will tell you any restrictions (like weight or style of baggage). I used an Eddie Bauer medium expedition rolling duffel bag, plus a backpack, and it was perfect. Camera - you will want something better than your smart phone or point-and-shoot camera for safari. I brought a bridge camera which has a 600 lens - that was perfect - I never wished I had a bigger lens (and it functioned well as binoculars). But I did wish at times I also had a simple iPhone style camera - times I wanted to take an impromptu photo with something in my pocket. Interestingly for the mountain gorillas my fellow trekkers had better pics on older iPhones than my fancy camera.
Get a general idea of your immunization needs (CDC has a good website where you can see requirements and recommendations for each country). About 6-8 weeks out visit a travel medical clinic (they will know the exact requirements). If you have Kaiser or a medical group they may offer it as part of their network. For sure you will need malaria pills, and be up-to-date on your regular shots. My doctor talked me into Typhoid immunization, which comes in 4 pills. They make you nauseous for days, so suggest doing this a few weeks before your trip so you're feeling normal again. You are required to have a Yellow Fever Shot and Certificate if you travel between African countries (but if you just go from the US to Kenya it's not required). If you need Yellow Fever, research this early - in 2017 there was a worldwide shortage, and only one clinic in Northern California had it in stock - so I shlepped to Oakland.
