Why Kenya is the perfect destination for adventurous kids
From the Big Five to smaller wonders, Will Gray reveals why a family adventure to Kenya just adds up
We’ve just returned from Kenya where numbers dominated the thoughts of our nine-year-old son, Joe. In fact, Joe himself discovered that he was worth two cattle or 10 goats, although we never got round to sealing the deal with our Maasai guide.
Joe also kept a tally of the number of photographs he and his sister, Ellie, took (1989), the number of meal courses we ate in three weeks (215) and the number of hours (eight) that we staked out a river crossing on the Mara River waiting in vain for the wildebeest and zebra to plunge across. He tried counting the vultures (hundreds) massed on the riverbank, too gorged on drowned wildebeest to fly, and admitted defeat with Lake Nakuru’s flamingos and the endless procession of elephants trundling to and from the waterhole at Tsavo East’s Satao Camp.
Wildebeest crossing the Mara River (Shutterstock.com)
Statistically, Kenya is truly mind-blowing to a child. It’s a place of big game and big numbers, particularly when you visit, as we did, during the height of the Great Migration when hundreds of thousands of wildebeest and zebra stream into the Masai Mara – under the watchful glare of its famous big cats.
