Ages
What works at four, at eight, at fourteen
Three completely different trips, and the difference is not the camp.
| Age | What works | What to avoid |
|---|---|---|
| Under 4 | Conservancies and private houses, short drives, a pool, flexible meals. Honestly, consider waiting. | Long transfers, camps with age limits, fixed schedules |
| 4 – 7 | Ol Pejeta and Laikipia, a private vehicle, two nights per camp | Three-hour drives, shared vehicles, back-to-back parks |
| 8 – 11 | Most of Kenya. The Mara works well. Walking safaris start to. | Over-packing the itinerary — downtime still matters |
| 12 – 15 | Everything: walking, riding, night drives, conservation work | Treating them as small children. Give them a role. |
| 16+ | A normal adult safari, often a better one | Very little |
On waiting
We are asked constantly whether three is too young, and the honest answer is: usually, for the trip most people are picturing.
A three-year-old will enjoy a swimming pool, a giraffe at close range and the staff making an enormous fuss of them. They will not enjoy two hours in a vehicle, and they will not remember any of it. That is a lot of money and a long flight for an experience the adults will spend managing.
If your dates are fixed by a family occasion, we will plan it properly — a house in Laikipia, one park, short drives, a lot of pool. If you are choosing freely, six is where it starts being fun for them and eight is where it becomes wonderful.
Getting round minimum ages
- Private vehicle. Most camps drop the limit if your family is not sharing. This is the usual answer and it improves the trip anyway.
- Family tents and units. Camps with dedicated family accommodation almost always have lower limits.
- Exclusive use. Take the whole house and the limit is irrelevant — there is nobody else to disturb.
What we will not do
Book a child into a camp below its minimum age by not mentioning it. It happens, and it ends with a family being turned away at an airstrip. We check, and we tell you.
Teenagers
The best age, and the most often underestimated. Give a fourteen-year-old a camera, a walking safari and a guide who treats them as an adult and they will out-spot everyone in the vehicle.
Laikipia is our first suggestion for teenagers: riding, walking, night drives, and conservation work that is genuinely interesting rather than a token activity.
More from our Kenya guides
Specialist guides across our Kenya network
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