Small group, Kenya Luxury Safari and Helicopter Tour – September 14-24, 2026 (10 nights/11 days)
Join award-winning photographers Denise Ippolito and Paul Mckenzie, on a one-of-a-kind Kenya safari. This exclusive photo tour will include two days of helicopter aerial photography in the far north of Kenya, followed by three nights in Samburu and five nights in the Masai Mara for a total of ten nights.
We will be staying in luxury lodges and camps in Samburu and the Mara with fine dining and exclusive vehicle use.
This tour is restricted to just 4 guests.
Highlights:
- One night in Nairobi in an upmarket hotel.
- Two days of beyond spectacular helicopter aerial photography in an extremely remote and wild area of northern Kenya. Amazing volcanic landscapes, spellbinding colours and patterns and hundreds of thousands of flamingos. Plenty of landing opportunities for land-based and drone photography.
- 3 nights in Samburu national park staying in a luxury lodge with air conditioning and fine dining. Exclusive vehicle use with every guest having a full row to themselves. Morning and afternoon game drives.
- 5 nights in the Masai Mara national reserve staying in a luxury tented camp with fine dining. Exclusive vehicle use with every guest having a full row to themselves. Morning and afternoon game drives. Our visit coincides with the annual wildebeest migration.
- Two private air charters
- Two multi-award-winning photographic leaders, each with a wealth of Kenya photographic experience.
Day 1 - Our tour starts in Nairobi with dinner and an overnight stay in an upmarket hotel.
Day 2 – Early the next morning, we will make the short transfer to Wilson airport for a private charter (no check-in hassles or excess baggage fees) to central Kenya where our helicopters are based. Following refreshments and after dropping our large bags at this base, we will board two R66 helicopters, with open doors, to begin our aerial excursion. Each guest will have prime, open-door viewing.
Paul has been travelling to the places we are going to for the last 20 years and has the world’s largest portfolio of high-quality images from these areas. He has a wealth of photographic knowledge when it comes to shooting aerial images, which he will share with everyone. Six of his images from this area over the years have been awarded in the world’s most prestigious wildlife photo competition – Wildlife Photographer of the Year. It has been that rewarding.
In his words: “I am extremely well-travelled and if I’m being honest, have become a little jaded with some of the destinations that I have visited multiple times. But after some 25 aerial excursions to northern, Kenya, this is the one destination that I always get excited for. It is hard to put into words, but it’s the combination of its remoteness (inaccessible by vehicle), extreme beauty, and amazing photography opportunities. Lake Logipi (see below), as a shallow water soda lake, with its vast flamingo numbers, is in a permanent state of flux, meaning that conditions are never the same, even on a daily basis – and these changing conditions are a big attraction.”
The first part of the aerial tour will see us fly to and then proceed north up the Seguta Valley, broadly following the Seguta River. This long valley is like a pre-historic time capsule – a land that time forgot. The whole valley is littered with ancient volcanoes, calderas, and hardened lava flow. Many of the calderas are filled with water of various shades of pink, red, blue, and green, indicating the presence of different types of algae.
The southern end contains two swamp areas, punctuated by numerous colourful pools. Some of these can attract large numbers of Lesser and Greater Flamingos. Huge Nile Crocodiles can also be seen. Camel trains, along with attendant Pokot and Turkana tribespeople are also sometimes encountered in this area.
One of the big attractions of using helicopters is that we have the ability to land at any time, which we will 100% be taking advantage of. Once on the ground we will have the opportunity to undertake land-based photography and the bit that holds a special attraction – the ability to fly drones. Again, Paul is an extremely experienced and accomplished drone photography and will be on hand to help anyone who chooses to fly a drone.
The northern end of the Seguta Valley has the most spectacular volcanic features including “Aruba Rock”, the “Stingray” (an ancient volcanic outcropping that strongly resembles a stingray when viewed from the air) and “Crocodile Rock” (a chain of volcanic rocks in the shape of a crocodile). We will also photograph and likely land-- in a large area of near-perfectly shaped sand dunes.
The jewel in the crown of the Seguta Valley is unquestionably, Lake Logipi, at the far northern end of the valley. It is a seasonal soda lake, that periodically can attract up to 1 million flamingos. We will likely spend a large amount of time over the lake photographing as well as on the lake shore. When conditions are right – and we are going at the height of the dry season which offers the best chances for prime conditions – this is one of the most spectacular aerial destinations on our planet. Even when conditions are sub-optimal, it is still amazing: a kaleidoscope of colours and patterns, augmented by hundreds of thousands of Lesser and Greater flamingos. The opportunities for land-based landscape and drone photography will be incredible.
From Logipi, we will ascend and fly over the “Barrier,” a mesmerizing ancient volcanic lava field with numerous calderas that separates Logipi from Lake Turkana (also known as the Jade Sea). A land stop on top of the Barrier, offers breathtaking panoramic views of Lake Logipi, especially late in the day. Arriving at the southern shore of Lake Turkana, we will encounter Nabuyatom volcano, an almost perfectly formed, uneroded caldera, more than one kilometer wide. We have the opportunity to land on the rim of the caldera.
By now, the sun should be setting, and we will make the short flight across to South Island, set within Lake Turkana, where our helicopter company has established a comfortable camp. The camp has a generator which will allow us to charge our batteries. After showers and dinner, I anticipate that we should have some good opportunities for Milky Way photography near to our camp.
After a very early breakfast, we will want to be in the air shortly after sunrise. The return journey will look similar to the one the day before, just in reverse and with different lighting conditions. We can plan with the pilots the night before, what our main focus areas will be, but we will have plenty of new scenes to photograph as well as different landing spots.
We should be able to photograph for several hours. The helicopters will then drop us off at our next destination, Samburu. We have arranged for a private plane to transfer our large luggage from the helicopter base to our lodge in Samburu. I anticipate that we should reach Samburu by late afternoon and hopefully we will have enough time for a short game drive before returning to our lodge for showers and dinner.
Samburu in the north of Kenya is famed for its large elephant population, high density leopard population and several unique species to this general area including gerenuks, Grevy’s zebra and Somali ostriches. Lions and cheetahs are common. Samburu tends to be drier than many other game reserves in Kenya and it is the combination of animals framed in golden light and dust that makes it so attractive to wildlife photographers.
After 3 nights in Samburu, we will take a scheduled flight to the famed Masai Mara game reserve where we will spend 5 nights and 6 days in a luxury, ideally situated tented camp with fine dining. We will be using the same drivers/guides that have been with us in the Mara for the last 20 years. They are the very best!
Our Mara visit has been timed to coincide with the annual wildebeest migration – as many as 1m wildebeest, along with several hundred thousand zebras and gazelles, pour into the Mara from Tanzania in the south. We will have excellent chances of photographing river crossings. The Mara is famed for its high density, big cat populations and we are guaranteed to be able to photograph lions, leopards, and cheetahs.
After a full morning game drive on our last morning, we will return to camp for showers before departing for a private air charter back to Wilson airport in Nairobi.
Price: $22,500
most images by Paul McKenzie