A year ago today a baby elephant, Kainuk, was rescued next to her dead mother on a reserve in Kenya and was brought to the The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (DSWT) in Nairobi.

We fostered her just a week later when we were visiting the DSWT on the last day of our family safari in Africa. I just checked in on her status and photos on the Orphan’s Project website and Kainuk seems to be thriving. What a difference a year makes!

Every family trip has those truly memorable moments that you talk about forever. Sometimes it’s the travel nightmares that make an entertaining story (producing smiles only in the back end), sometimes it’s an extraordinary experience that sticks in our minds, while on other occasions what we remember is those funny moments that aren’t big bang experiences, but a time when we witness something simple yet utterly foreign.

Like this moment on our family safari in Africa.

A family safari in Africa is extraordinary in every way. I’m not a fan of flying (in airplanes or otherwise), but the offer from Bateleur Camp to organize an early morning hot air balloon ride over the Masai Mara with Skyship Company was too compelling to pass up.

These photos don’t lie, this adventure was absolutely phenomenal.

My first exposure to an article about the hotel Giraffe Manor in Nairobi, Kenya was followed by a flurry of emails to friends with an all caps WOW in the subject line. There are unique hotels all over the world, but the list narrows quickly when you identify truly one-of-a-kind experiences.

Unless you know of other hotels where giraffes can and do literally poke their head into open windows in the morning, Giraffe Manor qualifies.

Of all the animals we saw on our family safari in Africa … guess what interested our 8-year-old the most? Believe it or not, it wasn’t the lions — even when we were lucky enough to see a kill in action.

Birds!

Surprise, surprise. Birds are extraordinary in Africa and come in all colors, shapes, and sizes. This is part of what captured his interest, but the other factor was …

Although I opted to plan most of our safari in Africa through AndBeyond, I wanted to ensure that we got a taste of a different experience too.

Abercrombie and Kent (A&K) is one of the world’s leading luxury travel brands. Their awards are numerous and the company has been planning trips for decades. A&K’s roots are in Africa and this is an extra special destination for them with many fabulous itineraries.

People refer to a vacation in Africa as a trip of a lifetime. And it is. Traveling to this continent is a big trip in every way — the preparation, expense, travel time required to get there — are consequential.

What really makes it a trip of a lifetime, however, is the wondrous experience of being in a place where you are able to witness the very essence of our world in the most powerful and authentic way, i.e. one that is raw and unadulterated. What you experience life changing …

My dream of taking a family safari in Africa was fulfilled last week; we just returned from a 9-day vacation in Kenya and Tanzania. We visited the Masai Mara, Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, and Lake Manyara national parks. I learned so much during the planning and execution of this trip — my head is spinning with all the details and tips I want to share.

Our trip was absolutely phenomenal in every way — a true experience of a lifetime.