Karatu Simba Lodge is a eco-friendly lodge located near the Ngorongoro Forest in Tanzania. Many safari travelers stop for a night in Karatu because of its strategic location between Lake Manyara National Park and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. The Karatu Simba Lodge is committed to environmental conservation with its reliance on solar power and emphasis on water conservation; however, the lodge also offers all the amenities that weary safari travelers will be wanting after a day of bumpy, dusty roads, including en-suite flush toilets and hot showers, wireless internet, a swimming pool, complimentary afternoon tea and coffee, and nightly campfires. The lodge sits off the main road along the northern safari circuit amongst a series of small farms and offers beautiful views to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Forest. If you’re lucky you might even get to spot elephants, buffalo, baboons, or other animals wandering outside the forest from the safety… Read the rest
Archives for August 2014
How to Spend a Day in Nairobi: Our Detailed 1 Day Itinerary
We’ve done this exact 1-day Nairobi itinerary twice: once in 2014 and again in 2022. Both times it worked. We fed giraffes at the Giraffe Centre, watched baby elephants get their morning bottles at the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, had lunch in Karen Blixen’s old coffee estate, toured a ceramic bead factory run by local women, and finished with a meat feast at Carnivore. This post walks through each stop with timings, costs, and everything you need to book. Nairobi is Kenya’s capital, the most populous city in eastern Africa, and a major business, political, and financial hub in Africa. Most tourists arrive at the NBO airport and then head out the next day for safari, earning the city the nickname “Safari Capital of the World”. However, Nairobi is worth at least a day or two of exploration as the city offers parks, shopping, art museums, cultural attractions, the chance to… Read the rest
Fine European Dining at Machweo Wellness Retreat near Arusha Tanzania
The day we completed our trek of Mt. Kilimanjaro, we headed back to Arusha to enjoy the warm beds and gourmet dining at Machweo Wellness Retreat & Fine Dining. We were told during our recent trip to Africa that “you don’t come to Tanzania for the food”, which is likely true given the stunning scenery, amazing wildlife, and endearing people to be found in this enchanting country. Ethan and I found the food to be quite tasty throughout our travels in Tanzania, but travelers looking for restaurants serving up gourmet dishes may be hard-pressed to find good options. Tucked away in the green hills just outside of Arusha, travelers will be pleased to discover not only a small boutique hotel but a restaurant that has been critically acclaimed for its European-African fusion four-course gourmet meals. Sitting side-by-side Onsea House and Machweo are two properties jointly run by the Janssens, a… Read the rest
The Rongai Route Up Kilimanjaro: A Complete 2026 Guide and Our Trip Report
The Rongai route is the only path up Mount Kilimanjaro that approaches Africa’s highest peak from the north, near the Kenyan border. It’s also one of the least-crowded routes on the mountain, which is part of why we chose it for our climb back in 2014 with Tanzanian operator Amani Afrika. In the years since, Laurence and I have returned to East Africa twice more with Amani Afrika as full-paying clients, and we still send people their way when they ask. This guide covers the planning side of a Rongai climb in 2026 first: how the route compares to the other ways up Kilimanjaro, when to go, what it costs, how to choose an operator, what to pack, and the practical things people actually want to know about showers, charging, tipping, and joining a group as a solo climber. Below the planning sections, the original 2014 trip report from my… Read the rest
Our Charity Climb of Mount Kilimanjaro for Climb for Sight
This past January Ethan and I made the decision to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to help support a non-profit organization called Vision for the Poor. Through our climb, we raised donations from both individual and corporate sponsors to be used to support the treatment of children and families in need of sight-saving eye surgery and new eyeglasses in Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua, Peru, and Tanzania. We just completed the climb about one week ago and Ethan summited and got to stand on the top of Africa as Mt. Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain in Africa and the highest free-standing mountain in the world at 19,341 ft. (5,895 meters)! Neither of us are mountain climbers and while Mt. Kilimanjaro does not require technical climbing, it is quite a difficult trek because of the altitude and the final steep ascent at the top. I found this out first hand as while Ethan successfully… Read the rest