In The Footsteps of Joy Adamson
September 1-12, 2023

Almost every North American that I know, grew up watching Born Free, that Academy Award winning Walt Disney film, about conservationists Joy and George Adamson, and their pioneering work reintroducing lions to the semi-desert wilderness, in the wide open spaces of Kenya’s northern borderlands, in what is now Samburu and Isiolo districts.

Joy Adamson was a gifted painter, photographer, conservationist and bestselling author. A fiercely independent pioneer woman who married three times for love, her paintings are still on display at the National Museums of Kenya in Nairobi. Her house, Elsamere, stands on the shores of Lake Naivasha in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley.

For 17 years I made Kenya and later Tanzania, my home. In Kenya I visited all and every part of the country; its villages, game parks, rift valley lakes and northern deserts. Like Joy, and her husband George, I spent much time studying its many tribes, its history and prehistory.

Wherever I went, Joy had been there before me and served as an inspiration for my own travel and research. As Director of the Department of Ethnography at the National Museums of Kenya, I made sure that her collection of paintings were well taken care of and available for public viewing. I therefore invite you to join me for a “thinking person's Safari in Kenya" in the footsteps of conservationists Joy and George Adamson.

We will begin in Nairobi and then fly south to the Northern Serengeti (the Maasai Mara) on the border of Tanzania, take in the big five - lion, elephant, giraffe, zebra, buffalo - and then visit Lake Naivasha/Elementeita area where Joy and her husband lived, watch the hippos on the lake and walk among wild animals (safely) on Crescent Island.

We will then drive through the Kikuyu highlands near Mount Kenya, made famous by Danish writer Karen Blixen (author of Out of Africa) and then spend time in Laikipia, at Ol Pejeta Conservation Ranch, world famous for its rhinos. There you will have an opportunity of taking a forest walk nearby as well as game runs in this unique game park, rhino reserve and cattle ranch.

Next, we will fly to Mount Nyiru, above Lake Turkana, in the territory of the Samburu tribe, at a remote mountain tent camp. This rare opportunity will give you a feeling of what Kenya was like in the early days, when Joy and George lived and worked in the “Northern Frontier,” a place that was closed to settlers and farmers (until 1964) and which is still populated by proud, independent nomads.

Finally, we will fly back to Nairobi and then to an Indian Ocean beach hotel where we will relax for two nights before returning to Nairobi for our flight home.

Throughout the trip I will periodically give short talks on the history, archaeology and ethnography of this ethnically diverse country.