In Laikipia, An Elite Group Of Conservationists Has Created A High-luxury, High-stakes Experiment In Frontier Living.
We are off into the Blue as our helicopter catches air and the sound of Garth Brooks fills our Bose headphones. “One of my Texas playlists,” remarks our sandy-haired pilot, Ben Simpson. His frontier-breaking helicopter safaris take travelers (among them George W. Bush) from Ethiopia’s Danakil Depression to the forests of eastern Congo. But this time, he’s working closer to home: Laikipia, in Kenya’s central highlands, where Simpson has lived for 18 years.
The dirty skies of Nairobi recede as we fly 45 minutes north from the capital, past the cloud-ringed peak of Mount Kenya to the golden savanna of the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, which contains roughly 12 percent of all Kenya’s rhinoceros. To Lewa’s northwest lies the Laikipia Plateau—a tapestry of farms, Maasai cattle encampments, and private ranches alongside swaths of land that have been turned over to wildlife conservation. We fly over Simpson’s house, a glass-and-stone bungalow set on a rock where 22 elephant broke into his garden the week before, then tip deeper into the plateau’s wilds, spotting a herd of reticulated giraffe—of the estimated 4,700 that remain, around 30 percent are in Laikipia—and a black rhino, its calf trotting behind.
You won’t see rhino in these concentrations in the Maasai Mara, says my seatmate, Alice Daunt, a husky-voiced London-based travel agent with an elite client list, referring to southern Kenya’s most iconic game reserve. “What the Mara was to grand tourists 20, 30 years ago, this patch of northern Kenya is to the next generation.” Our trip will cover not only the great game in the area, but several privately owned lodges, including a new rental house, Arijiju, which Daunt bills as the most beautiful bush home in Africa.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة April 2017 من Condé Nast Traveler.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة April 2017 من Condé Nast Traveler.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
PAINT THE TOWN
In residential South Kolkata, enterprising young locals are turning brightly colored old estates, once doomed for demolition, into the city's latest hot spots
lost in time
On an epic, sun-soaked journey across southern Greece's Peloponnese, Antonia Quirke revels in her connection to the history and myths that swirl around its rugged shores
home is where you make it
On a road trip through Oman with her toddler son, Ashlea Halpern ponders what it means to be a parent in the wake of her father's death
still lazy after all these years
Decades after a boyhood of easygoing afternoons in Washington State's San Juan Islands, Jesse Ashlock returns with his own children to rediscover this bucolic corner of America where time almost seems to stand still
the 2024 hot list WHERE to STAY, CRUISE & EAT NEXT
It's inevitable: Every spring when we pull together the Hot List, our annual collection of the world's best new hotels, restaurants, and cruise ships, a staffer remarks that this latest iteration has got to be the best one ever. After a year's worth of traveling the globe-to stay the night at a converted farmhouse in the middle of an olive grove outside Marrakech or sail aboard a beloved cruise line's inaugural Antarctic voyage-it's easy to see why we get attached.
RUNWAY TO SANTA FE
Indigenous designer Orlando Dugi shares his favorite art, culture, and cocktails in his adopted hometown
GOLDEN CHILD
A blink-and-you'll-miss-it surf town on Australia's east coast is now a chic weekend getaway
word of mouth
THE PEOPLE, PLACES & IDEAS WE'RE TALKING ABOUT RIGHT NOW
Animal Kingdom
A massive effort in Saudi Arabia to restore its endemic flora and fauna is underway. Now, the country is looking to tourism to help support it
Building Change
On a pristine stretch of Mexico's southwestern coast, anew developmentis grounded in community and creativity