My Favourite Places: Kicheche
If you love cheetahs, you’ll love Kicheche…!
"Behind you!" (shot on a game drive from Kicheche Bush Camp)
Anywhere you see five cheetah kills in a week is going to be a great place for wildlife photography! And that’s what happened to me when I first visited Kicheche Bush Camp in 2018 with Paul Goldstein. Paul is one of the owners of Kicheche Camps in Kenya. There are three camps in the Masai Mara and one in the shadow of Mount Kenya:
Kicheche Bush Olare
Kicheche Mara North
Kicheche Valley
Kicheche Laikipia
Kicheche is my favourite place for an African safari, and I’ve visited all the camps over the years. They’re all in private conservancies, which means you can drive off-road and don’t have to worry about opening times, as you would in a national park. The combination of frequent big cat sightings, expert guides and attentive service is the reason I keep going back as often as I can—and I suggest you do the same!
Getting There
Getting to Africa is a pain from just about anywhere else in the world. That’s just a given. The distances involved are enormous, and you usually have to take a long-haul flight and one or two connecting flights plus a lengthy road transfer to get to where you’re going.
If you’re travelling via Nairobi from the UK, it’s even more annoying because BA doesn’t have overnight flights both ways, so you have to take a daytime flight and spend the night in a hotel on your way out. The only way around that is to mix and match your airlines by flying out with Kenya Airways and back with BA—but that’s obviously more expensive and doesn’t earn you as many Avios!
The other problem with Nairobi is that you can’t use the same airport for international and domestic flights. You have to fly in to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (IATA: NBO, ICAO: HKJK) and then drive across town to Wilson Airport (IATA: WIL, ICAO: HKNW). Nairobi is a fast-growing city, and the traffic is sometimes appalling, so you have to allow an hour for the journey just to be on the safe side…
On the positive side, travelling by way of the local airstrips is a dream. I love small airports because you don’t get all the security checks, three-hour check-in times and delayed departures that you generally get at major international hubs like London Heathrow.
There are several airports in the Masai Mara, and the usual arrangement is that you take a ‘caravan’ flight or stopping service to and from Wilson Airport that lands at four or five of the local landing strips. The joy of the return flight is that you can turn up 15 minutes in advance, there’s no security and nobody asks for your passport! Someone just ticks your name off the list, puts your bag in the hold and helps you on board.
You have to understand that most of these airstrips are tiny, with no more than a windsock to let you know there may be planes taking off and landing on the grass! They’re usually less than an hour away from whichever camp you’re heading to first, and you’ll normally be met by one of the local guides in a safari truck. The drive to the camp will be your first chance to see game, and it’s great to start out with a few sightings of the Big Five.
The Camps
Main area in Kicheche Bush Camp
If you’ve never been on safari before, there are three main types of accommodation: basic tents, safari lodges and luxury tented camps. On my first trip to Botswana, I camped every night in a very basic tent. I didn’t have to put it up myself or do any other chores, but it was the cheapest way I could manage to spend as much time as possible with the wildlife. Every day involved a 12-hour game drive from dawn until dusk, so I saw pretty much every living creature it was possible to see!
If you like a few more creature comforts, then you can opt for a four- or five-star safari lodge. Lodges are proper buildings made out of brick, stone and/or wood, so you’ll normally get a communal drinking and dining area with chalets, roundels or ‘bomas’ to sleep in, plus optional extras like a swimming pool and spa.
The final option is a luxury tented camp like the ones at Kicheche. Here, you won’t get the sort of facilities you’ll get at a swanky hotel, but you’ll usually be able to have a shower with hot and cold running water and enjoy tailored service from your own personal ‘butler’!
Kicheche Camps are laid out according to the standard African format, with a ‘main area’ consisting of communal tents surrounded by individual tents for each group of guests.
Main Area
The main area at Kicheche Bush Camp
The main area at one of the Kicheche camps is where most of the social interactions happen. It’s where you eat your meals, have drinks or just sit and chat with the other guests. Personally, I like to sit and rate my images on my laptop in between game drives, but it’s totally up to you. You can fiddle about with your camera, talk about your latest sightings or just have a nap in a hammock slung between two trees…
Tents
Tented accommodation at Kicheche Bush Camp
If you book a safari at a luxury tented camp, there are three important questions you need to ask about your tent:
Will there be power outlets?
Will there be Wi-Fi?
Will there be hot and cold running water?
It all sounds a bit medieval, but different camps have different policies, so it’s best to know in advance what you’re letting yourself in for!
Fortunately, the Kicheche camps are pretty well equipped, so you won’t have any problem surfing the web or recharging your cameras and other electronic devices. In the past, I’ve had to put up with ‘bush showers’, which involve a limited amount of hot water dripping on your head from a canvas bag! However, they’re becoming rarer and rarer these days, fortunately...
Daily Routine
One of the Kicheche safari trucks
The usual daily itinerary at the Kicheche camps involves a morning game drive from 0600-1200 in one of the safari trucks. (Most people call them jeeps, but Paul Goldstein hates that word for some reason…!) You’ll usually have a ‘bush breakfast’ in the vehicle, followed by a buffet lunch back at camp at around 1300, then an afternoon game drive from 1600-1930 and finally dinner in the main area at around 2100.
Food and Drink
Buffet lunch at Kicheche Laikipia
I hate to break it to you, but if you don’t like buffet food, you probably won’t enjoy the culinary experience on safari! Almost all the lodges and camps I’ve visited have laid on buffets for breakfast, lunch and dinner. There are a few notable exceptions, such as Chikunto and Finch Hattons, but that’s about it.
To be fair, the food itself is perfectly nice at Kicheche. In fact, I remember having fantastic meals at Kicheche Bush Camp in 2018. In those days, Darren and Emma were the managers, and they’d previously run a restaurant in Mombasa, so they really knew what they were doing! Darren had even worked as a baker, so the breads were to die for…
My only other complaint is the seating arrangements. When I’m on photographic trips, I’m almost always on my own, so I like the communal dining tradition at most safari camps. It gives me a chance to meet new people and share stories about our wildlife encounters and anything else that’s on our minds.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen. It’s fair enough if the other guests want to sit with their friends and families, I suppose, but I generally end up getting dumped at a table for two with the manager or another member of staff. Goodness knows why they think that’s a good idea, but if it ever happened to me at a posh London restaurant, I’d die of shock!
In general, the menu at Kicheche camps varies on a daily basis, but breakfast usually consists of homemade muesli, fruit and yoghurt, followed by sausages, muffins and/or ‘rollex’, a local speciality that was essentially a chapati and an omelette wrapped together.
There was always a jar of kachumbari (Kenyan salsa) to spice things up, and drinks included various fruit juices and coffee. When I visit any of the camps, I always ask for mango lassis. It’s my favourite breakfast drink, and the staff were happy to oblige me. In fact, the lassis I had there were probably the best I’ve ever had…
Lunch involves a plated starter, often home-made soup, followed by the usual buffet with a selection of meats, vegetables, salad dishes and various sauces to choose from. Sometimes, they do something special, and their made-to-order pizzas are excellent. Desserts are again individually served in bowls, and they’ll often involve ice cream or something like a banoffee pie.
Dinner follows roughly a similar format, with the occasional special event, like a ‘curry night’ or a ‘braai’.
Staff
Paul Goldstein
When I was a strategy consultant, I started up a Customer Loyalty practice at my firm, and I’ve always taken an interest in good customer service—ie I hate it when waiters don’t make me feel like the most important person in the world!
Well, the good news is that the staff at Kicheche are all superb. They’re so friendly and helpful that it seems like nothing is too much trouble. And they’re thoughtful, too. On my first visit to Kicheche Bush Camp, I had to lug my laptop, two cameras and a tangled mass of cables from my tent to the main area. When I got there, I realised I’d forgotten a USB-C cable. When I looked up, there was a member of staff holding the very one!
“I saw you’d left it on your bed,” he said, “so I thought I should bring it over just in case…”
That says it all!
In addition, all the Kicheche safari guides hold at least a Silver qualification from the Kenya Professional Safari Guides Association (KPSGA), placing them in the top 5% of Kenyan guides. They’re also thoughtful enough to give themselves English names. Their local language is just about unpronounceable for most guests, so they go by George, Jimmy, Andrew, David and Joseph instead…!
Finally, I should again mention the star of the show, Paul Goldstein. I’ve been lucky enough to go on around 10 trips with him, either at Kicheche or in Svalbard and India. His great gift is to get you where the action is—and that normally involves the big cats.
Paul’s greatest passion is for tigers, lions, leopards and cheetahs, so the way he runs his game drives is designed to let guests spend as much time with them as possible. He once explained to me the difference between the usual ‘tourist’ experience and what he offers himself. Normally, guests just drive around until they see something interesting, then take a few pictures and carry on. Rinse and repeat. On game drives with Paul, though, he searches for the cats, and once he finds them, he sticks with them.
That sometimes means a lot of waiting around, but he’s a past master at filling the hours. He can talk to you about photography and the local wildlife, and he’s a great raconteur, so he can tell a great story. Alternatively, his party trick is that if you give him two lines from any top 40 hit from the Eighties, he can name both the song and the artist! In addition, he has the most phenomenal memory for comic dialogue. Most people can tell a joke or two, but Paul can regale you with what seems like five or 10 minutes of lines from The Fast Show!
All in all, he’s a very knowledgeable guide and a good photographer in his own right, so he knows how to challenge you to get the best out of your safari. I’ve had a number of ‘firsts’ with Paul:
my first cheetah kill
my first polar bear
my first sunset silhouette.
He also taught me the slow pan (see article), and I was with him in India when I took the shot that ended up on the cover of Remembering Tigers, so thanks, Paul!
Guests
Safari guest (although they don’t all look like this…!)
There are many ways to enjoy a safari. Some people like to be up at the crack of dawn to see and photograph as much wildlife as possible. Others prefer to have a lie-in and wander down for a late breakfast. In fact, one girl I know didn’t turn up for a game drive on the basis that she preferred to read a book!
However, one aspect of the safari experience that few people mention is the opportunity to mix with some wonderful people. I’ve had some of the best conversations in my life with some of the other guests I’ve met in Africa. I can’t really explain it, but it perhaps has something to do with how expensive it is.
People who can afford to go on safari are generally going to be fairly well off, which means they must have been fairly successful in life. In turn, that means they must have more than two brain cells to rub together, as well as having an interest in the outdoors, in wildlife sightings and potentially in photography. That’s a pretty good basis for any conversation…!
The other point to make is that the people you meet are doing something they enjoy, and you can share the experience with them. I was once on a game drive in the Serengeti with a Belgian couple, and we saw four male lions take down a Cape buffalo. It was incredibly exciting, and we had a ringside seat from a distance of no more than 20 yards away. We talked about that sighting for the rest of the game drive, the rest of the day, and even the rest of the week…!
Wildlife
It's All Downhill From Here (shot on a game drive from Kicheche Valley Camp)
Whether or not you’re a keen photographer, I guess the main attraction of going on safari is the local wildlife. Sub-Saharan Africa is chock-full of wonderful species, including the Big Five (lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and buffalo), cheetahs, African wild dogs, giraffes and zebras, and the interactions between them are something you’ll hardly ever get anywhere else in the world.
Like Paul Goldstein, I love the big cats, and there’s nothing more exciting to me than a cheetah kill. Cheetahs only catch their prey about half the time, and I’ve seen plenty of unsuccessful hunts, but that’s just foreplay. What you really need is the takedown, the climax!
I’ve been on over 500 game drives since I became a wildlife photographer in 2013, and I’ve only seen around 10 kills. That means the chances of seeing one are only about 2%. However, I’ve seen at least one cheetah kill every time I’ve visited Kicheche in the Masai Mara, so if that’s what you’re looking for, you won’t find anywhere better.
The Big Five
Olympia (shot on a game drive from Kicheche Bush Camp)
Of course, Kicheche is not just about the cheetahs. According to Chris Packham, it’s ‘the best place in Africa to see wildlife’—and I agree! If you go on safari with Paul Goldstein, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get plenty of sightings of lions and leopards, as well as a fair sprinkling of everything else.
The only one of the Big Five you won’t see from Kicheche’s Mara camps is the rhino. For that, you need to go to Kicheche Laikipia. I went there for the first time in May 2025, and I was initially a bit worried I wouldn’t see much. My safari guide was very downbeat on the way there, telling me that there were ‘too many trees’, and I was beginning to think I’d made a huge mistake.
However, on my very first game drive, everything changed. I found myself in an enormous clearing with black and white rhinos all over the place! It was a real joy to be able to take my time and make the most of the opportunity. I even managed to get a few shots of a rhino with Mount Kenya in the background. Job done!
Other Animals
Miss Saigon (shot on a game drive from Kicheche Bush Camp)
One of the great things about Africa is the sheer variety of species. Even if you ignore the Big Five or the Magnificent Seven (including cheetahs and African wild dogs), you still have plenty of iconic species, including the hippo, the giraffe, the zebra and the blue wildebeest.
If you go during the Great Migration, you’ll be blown away by the sheer quantity of animals. I went on a game drive in the Serengeti a few years ago, and for every minute of that time, I could see at least 10,000 wildebeest!
If you love wildlife, you have to go to Africa. And if you love safaris, you have to go to Kicheche…
Birds
Fly Bee (shot on a game drive from Kicheche Bush Camp)
When people ask me if I photograph birds, I say, “Yes, of course—if there aren’t any animals around…!”
That’s actually not quite true. One of the benefits of shooting birds is that they actually DO something, rather than lazing around all day like most of the big cats. If you give most guests a choice between seeing a lion and seeing a lilac-breasted roller, they’ll almost all pick the lion, but the average lilac-breasted roller sighting is a LOT better than the average lion sighting.
One of my favourite things to do on safari is to find a colourful bird on a dead tree, like a lilac-breasted roller, a little bee-eater or a malachite kingfisher, and photograph it taking off. In the old days, it was a bit of a lottery—and I used to get very frustrated when I missed the shot! However, I have a Nikon Z8 these days with Pre-Release Capture, which is pretty much a cast-iron guarantee of results.
Verdict
Panning for Gold (shot on a game drive from Kicheche Bush Camp)
If you love wildlife and especially if you love wildlife photography, Kicheche is among the best places in the world to visit. You’ll get great sightings of the Big Five, and the standard of accommodation and service is high enough that you won’t need to worry about having to ‘rough it’!
I’ve taken photographs on all seven continents, but I keep going back to Kicheche because I KNOW I’m going to have the best possible chance of exciting wildlife encounters, especially cheetah kills. Once you’ve seen one, you won’t want to go anywhere else…!
To find out more about the Kicheche camps and/or book a trip, visit kicheche.com, send an email to sales@kicheche.com or call +254202493512/ 69.
If you’d like to order a framed print of one of my wildlife photographs, please visit the Prints page.
If you’d like to book a lesson or order an online photography course, please visit my Lessons and Courses pages.
