Lands Unknown: Off the Beaten Path East Africa Safari

These three days in Paje will be lazy. Zanzibar is a laid-back island that basks in its Indian Ocean location. The island’s Eastern coastline is undeveloped with only a handful of resorts and a couple of small fishing villages. The first thing you will notice is the space. Small resorts are separated by swathes of indigenous forest. The beach is broad, and at low tide, you can wade out for a mile in turquoise-toned waters. People are rare here as well. Elsewhere on Zanzibar, it is only Stone Town and Nungwe that allow you to really enjoy the incredible sense of Indian Ocean space.

Paje and Jambiani are on the more secluded side of Zanzibar, but it is difficult to call anywhere in Zanzibar completely off the beaten path. You can drive across the island in less than 90 minutes, or you can spend a day sailing around the island in a traditional wooden dhow. Later, on your adventure, you will be exploring places that remain unknown to people. You will be on an expedition, rising at dawn to enjoy the wildest wildlife encounters. Downtime is essential before such an adventurous safari, and that is exactly what Paje will provide.

These three days will be completely at your leisure, and your resort will encourage you to forget about shoes and time. It is okay to get up late and snooze throughout the day. You can recover from any travel fatigue and recharge your batteries during your stay. Activities can be organized with the resort, and these include snorkeling, sailing, scuba diving, and fishing trips. The most popular activity is to stroll along the beach or to lay back on your balcony and admire the Indian Ocean view.

Stone Town contrasts Zanzibar’s white sand. Space will be gone, and the first thing you will explore is a maze. Alleys wind around each other in haphazard patterns, and they are too narrow for vehicle traffic although donkeys and cows are not uncommon. Smells can guide you, including fresh octopus as it grills on an outdoor barbecue, or spices that waft out from market stalls. Sounds can also act as compass points, such as a poetic call to prayer from the many minarets. These two days will be led by one of Stone Town’s most respected guides. He will weave amazing tales with authentic Swahili experiences, so you will uncover and discover much of this UNESCO World Heritage Site. Local Swahili culture is a mishmash of influences that have been imported over the last millennium, but it is mostly a marrying of the East African mainland with the Persians and Omanis. You will be invited into old slave houses, where elaborate art is carved into every door and window frame. Traditional food will be served in 17th-century houses, where heritage seeps out of the decor. You will also walk in the footsteps of slaves who were sold here. During this experience, you will walk through the maze and out to dingy caves that are a short distance up the coast.

Stone Town is the most evocative and impressive destination in Sub-Saharan Africa. There are many hundreds of narrow coral houses, all of which rise four or five stories. Most date back 300 to 400 years, and you can really imagine what took place inside them, especially with such an excellent guide. Over these two days, you will witness Stone Town’s most famous places, including the Palace of Wonders and Tippu Tip’s House. Overall, your highlight of Stone Town will be entwining these places with Swahili stories. Sometimes, there is nothing better than sitting on a small public square and waiting for the chai seller to come past with a sweet dose of caffeine.

After five island days, Selous will offer you a dramatic change in the atmosphere. After your safari flight, the sounds that echo will be from roaring lions, which will prove to be a stark contrast from Stone Town’s minarets. You will touch down and be immediately immersed in the African bush. Elephants will set the scene here by marching about the forest in all their power and glory. Giraffes are also conspicuous, especially around a river that cuts Africa’s largest reserve in two. Zebras also flit across grassy plains, and you can hear them as they move, which will sound like a soft percussion that rattles past the camp. Selous is located in the far south of Tanzania. The Southern half of the reserve is sadly demarcated as hunting concessions. Animals are not stupid, and they gather in the north of the reserve, where there is permanent water and no gunshots. This is where you will be staying: at a small camp that stretches along the riverfront. Spotting animals from your camp is common here, and you may also experience an elephant that wanders through your camp.

The highlight here is experiencing these animals from many different perspectives. Boat safaris will guide you along the banks, so you can look up at the animals that are drinking and frolicking. You will also enjoy incredible close-ups with hippos, which are the primary river residents. This is completely safe, and you will be in the close supervision of your guide. Not to mention, you will be safe inside the boat. Game drives will feel like expeditions, which will be an opportunity to go off the beaten path in Africa’s largest game reserve and into places that may only see a couple of vehicles a week. Game walks stick near your camp and provide you with an opportunity to see what has been making the sounds around your camp. You can also go driving at night in search of nocturnal wildlife and prowling cats. Over these two days, you can try a combination of activities and receive an excellent grasp of what an African safari is all about.

Ruaha is wild and arid. Dust swirls, and the savanna can sometimes seem empty. Ochre colors will take over as you land in this hugely underrated and under-explored wilderness. In most other countries, Ruaha would be the premier attraction, but the vast majority of Tanzania’s safari visitors travel north to Ngorongoro and the Serengeti. Ruaha’s off-the-beaten-path feel emanates from the animals. Most of them are not used to visitors and vehicles. They react naturally, which means that ungulates typically runoff as they are afraid of danger, but large animals will boast their size and power. Aggressive elephant and buffalo displays are the norms here, and these can quickly put goosebumps on your arms, but you will be completely safe in the guidance of your expert and local guide. With such dangerous animals, you cannot go on game walks or nighttime drives in Ruaha. Instead, you will spend these two days on a safari expedition across the park. You will travel along rough and ready trails, heading deep into areas that rarely see any visitors.

It is very difficult to predict what you will see on any given safari. As with most of East Africa, three animals tend to be dominant: elephants are too big to miss, lions are the easiest predator to spot, and buffalos will not get out of your way. The rest is magical, and it is a smorgasbord of sights and sounds. You will experience the rhythmic beauty of how life comes and goes in Ruaha. You can expect these days to be long because you will spend almost all the daylight hours driving. Sometimes, you will get lost or stuck, but this is what a safari expedition is all about. When you want to go off the beaten path, there are few more untouched places than the remote African savanna.

The Serengeti and Masai Mara grasslands are the same ecosystem but divided by an international border that was first drawn by European colonialists. If you want to go beneath the surface of these famous safari destinations, then you will need to have Masai warriors as your guides. The Masai tribe are also separated by this border and are spread across Northern Tanzania and Southern Kenya. They are the gatekeepers to these grasslands. Although it is rarely documented, the Masai were responsible for preserving an ecosystem that is home to more wild mammals than anywhere else in Africa. Millions live on these grasslands from the wildebeests and zebras to all the different predators. Once in Kenya, you will fly directly to Mara Naboisho, which is a private conservancy that borders Masai Mara National Reserve. In this conservancy, you will go walking with Masai warriors. You will need to remember that the Masai have been walking these plains for many generations. Not only do they keep themselves safe, but they also keep their livestock and guests clear of big cats. If you choose not to participate for whatever reason, you can supplement this activity with a game drive.

Walking safaris will form most of your two-day Mara program, and they provide you with a chance to move incredibly close to the herds. You can also walk alongside thousands of zebras and be surrounded by endless wildebeest herds. Elephants will dot the horizon, and buffalos may move very close to you. This will be a true Masai safari away from noisy vehicles and visitor crowds. Over the next two days, you will learn about tracking animals and how to stay safe when dangerous cats are about. Then, on short game drives, you will go off the trail to see these cats up close, including leopards and cheetahs that use Mara Naboisho as a nursery for their cubs.

After six days of safari adventure, today will provide you with some time to stop, relax, and reflect. It will also be time to settle back into some modern luxuries. Chyulu Hills is a bucolic reserve without fences. Animals move freely along open wildlife corridors, traversing all over the landscape. Your lodge will be perched on a hill that overlooks a seemingly endless landscape of green space. From your suite, you will be able to see Masai with their grazing herds along with animals, such as elephants and giraffes. There is not as much wildlife here as elsewhere that you have recently experienced, and it is very rare to see lions or other big cats.

Chyulu Hills is where you can unwind on a superlative natural landscape that is hundreds of miles from any town or city. You can walk and cycle with ungulates, or even take a horseback safari. After six days of expedition-style safaris, you can now enjoy lazy hours at a luxury safari lodge, where drinks can be ordered to the pool and the food is finer than you can ever imagine in the wilderness. Chyulu Hills is still an excellent safari destination as long as you do not mind the lack of lions and leopards, which are animals that you should have encountered on many occasions in Tanzania and Mara Naboisho. This will allow you to go out walking and driving, admiring all the subtleties and nuances that make an African safari unique.

After a very relaxed morning, you will fly to Nairobi. Depending on the time of your international flight, you can have some hours to explore the Kenyan capital or to have dayroom use at an airport hotel.