Our editor-in-chief just returned from a trip to southern Kenya and northern Tanzania, taking in the most famous game park in Kenya, the Maasai Mara, and the most famous game park in Tanzania, the Serengeti. In the 15 days he was gone, he visited six safari camps and one hotel. We couldn’t wait to hear about his experience. While he has been fortunate enough to have been on more than 30 safaris, this one just may have been the most life-affirming yet.

Why Africa?
My first trip to the Maasai Mara and the Serengeti was before the age of mass tourism; I saw them when they were empty. That’s when I fell in love with Africa. You could drive around the Mara and not see anyone. I spent five days following the migration in the southern Serengeti and never saw anyone else. It was just me, the guide, 2 million wildebeest and 250,000 zebra. And that was, I thought, something people would want to replicate. Right now, because of the lack of tourism, they can. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

How did you get there and back?
I took a nonstop 13.5-hour flight from New York to Nairobi on Kenya Airways. The flight home was longer: Dar es Salaam to Doha via Zanzibar on Qatar Airlines; that was eight hours. Then from Doha to New York was 14.