Inside Our 2024 Kenya Safari Yoga Retreat: Ol Pejeta, Wildlife & Conservation
There are places in the world that change you quietly, without asking permission. Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya is one of them.
In June 2024, we returned for our fourth Kenya safari yoga retreat — a week of game drives, sunrise yoga, conservation encounters, and more wildlife than you could point a camera at. If you've been wondering what a yoga retreat in Kenya actually looks, feels and smells like — this one's for you.
Arriving in Kenya: Nairobi to Ol Pejeta
Most guests began with a night at the 254 Ole Sereni Hotel in Nairobi — a well-placed, unpretentious hotel near Jomo Kenyatta International Airport with views directly over Nairobi National Park. It's a humble introduction to Kenya, and one of our favourites: you fall asleep to a skyline and wake up to giraffe.
After breakfast, we met in the hotel lobby and made our way north through the city, through farmland and highland forest, and out onto the vast, open expanse of the Laikipia Plateau. The drive takes around four hours. There's a good curio shop and café roughly halfway — we always stop, stock up on snacks and do a bit of shopping here and it’s a great way to break up the journey and ease into life in Kenya. Then we arrived at Ol Pejeta gate around midday.
Our guides from The Safari Cottages met us at the entrance and our first game drive had already begun before we'd even unpacked. White rhinos, elephants, zebras, buffalo, towering giraffe — all within the first hour. By the time we settled in that evening and headed out for our first sundowner on the plains, we already knew it was going to be a special week.
This White Rhino struck a perfect pose for us in the beautiful evening light
Sunrise Yoga on the African Plains
Every morning of our Kenya safari yoga retreat began the same way: early light, fresh Kenyan coffee, and a yoga practice on the deck as the sun came up over the plains.
It sounds like a brochure line. It doesn't feel like one.
When you're in warrior pose watching a herd of elephants move through the acacia trees at the edge of the river — when a giraffe appears over the treeline mid-savasana — something shifts in the practice that's impossible to manufacture back home. The outdoor setting doesn't just accompany the yoga ;it transforms it. Guests who told us on arrival that they were "a bit rusty" or "not very flexible" stopped worrying about any of that within twenty-four hours. The bush does something to the nervous system that no studio can replicate.
We practiced twice daily on our Kenya yoga retreat — mornings to open the day, afternoons to process and restore before the evening game drive. All levels, all bodies, no expectations.
We were surrounded by a huge herd of giraffe as we watched the sun set. What a moment this was!!
Wildlife on Ol Pejeta: What We Saw
Ol Pejeta Conservancy is East Africa's largest black rhino sanctuary and home to some of Kenya's most extraordinary wildlife and iconic landscapes. We've been running yoga retreats here since 2021, and it never stops delivering! In June 2024, the long rains had just ended so the plains were lush and green, the wildlife was extraordinary. There were baby animals at what felt like every turn.
Our June 2024 sightings included:
Lions — we witnessed two kills during the week and encountered countless prides including big males and sweet cubs. The lion population at Ol Pejeta is thriving and we love to see it!
Elephants — enormous herds, including cows with very young calves, were a part of almost every game drive and visited us often at lunchtime and on the deck during yoga.
Leopards — not one but three separate leopard sightings, including a magnificent male on day one (photographed by guest Emma Thomas — see below).
White and black rhinos — we love Ol Pejeta for this. We had almost daily sightings of both species.
Giraffe, zebra, buffalo, hyena — the plains game was exceptional throughout.
For those keeping count: that's the Big Five plus we saw two leopards, in one week. The Ol Pejeta Safari Cottages guides — who have spent decades on this conservancy and know individual animals by sight — make all the difference.
“This was my first yoga retreat and I would love to do it again! We thoroughly enjoyed a couple of days in Nairobi before arriving at Ol Pejeta. Sunrise yoga in the African bush was a perfect way to begin each day. We had incredible wildlife sightings each day, including a leopard cub. The accommodations were spacious and very comfortable, the food was healthy and delicious and the service was outstanding. One of my favorite parts was stargazing on the way to the fire before dinners in the evenings. Laura and Kat did an excellent job teaching the yoga classes and planning optional unique experiences each day. I am confident that this will be one of my favorite trips ever!” - Amy Sanders (Kenya 2024)
A beautiful male leopard on day one! Photographed by Emma Thomas.
Life at The Safari Cottages
Our home for the week was The Safari Cottages — a small, beautifully run property tucked into an acacia riverline at the heart of the conservancy. It's the kind of place that feels immediately, inexplicably like home and the people here have come to feel like family for us.
Each morning the team prepared a full picnic breakfast to be eaten out in the bush after the game drive — homemade granola, fresh fruit, cooked meats, pancakes, and freshly brewed Kenyan coffee drunk in camp chairs watching the savannah warm up. Lunches were colourful salads and local dishes served in the shade of trees overlooking the river. Evenings ended around the fire under an extraordinary sky.
One of the unchanging highlights of every Yoga for the Wild Kenya retreat is our community yoga class with the staff at The Safari Cottages — always one of the most joyful, generous hours of the week, and a reminder of why we keep coming back to this specific place, with these wonderful people.
Our community yoga class with the staff at The Safari Cottages is always one of our favourites
Visiting the Northern White Rhinos: Najin & Fatu
There is only one thing to say about meeting the northern white rhinos at Ol Pejeta.
Nothing prepares you for it.
Najin and Fatu are a mother and daughter and they are the last two northern white rhinos alive on Earth. When you are near them — genuinely near them, in their enclosure - so close you could touch them, with their keeper Zach explaining the science and the conservation breakthroughs and the extraordinary, painstaking work being done to pull this species back from extinction we are all reminded of the fragility of life and how little it takes for us to destroy and how important it is that we fight for the preservation of iconic species such as this.
In 2024, there was hopeful news on the IVF programme — the first successful embryo transfer in the species — and we held our collective breath as Zach updated us. We also had a magical moment when a praying mantis hitched a ride on Najin's back and Zach caught the whole thing on camera.
A visit to Najin and Fatu is included in every Yoga for the Wild Kenya safari retreat. We treat it not as a tick-box encounter, but as a moment of bearing witness — to what can be lost, to what is being fought for, and to why conservation-focused travel matters.
Zach snapping a picture of a praying mantis hunting flies on Najin’s (the rhino’s) back
The K9 Anti-Poaching Unit
Another conservation highlight we build into every Kenya retreat is a visit to Ol Pejeta's K9 security team.
These dogs — and their handlers — are extraordinary. They work across Ol Pejeta and in wildlife reserves and national parks around the world, tracking poachers and detecting arms and ammunition. Watching them work, and meeting the handlers who have dedicated their lives to this work, is a powerful reminder of how many people are on the front lines of wildlife protection every single day.
Conservation education is woven into everything we do at Yoga for the Wild. It's not a box to tick or a panel talk to sit through. It's the entire reason we choose the destinations, lodges and partners that we do.
Why We Keep Coming Back to Ol Pejeta
This was our fourth Kenya safari yoga retreat. We've also run retreats to Kenya's Masai Mara, to Zimbabwe, to the Maldives — but Ol Pejeta holds a particularly special place for us because this was where it all started! The wildlife density, the quality of the guiding, the intimacy of The Safari Cottages, the conservation work happening on the ground that your visit directly supports. It all combines to make for a week that changes you on every level. And the northern white rhinos — every time we leave, we hope that by the next visit, there will be news of a pregnancy.
These retreats are why Yoga for the Wild exists. Not to create beautiful content or tick wildlife off a list — but to connect people to wild places in a way that makes them care about what happens to those places when they go home.
Here are a few more of my favourite shots from the week…
Join Our Next Kenya Safari Yoga Retreat
We run our Kenya yoga retreat annually. Every retreat includes:
Private vehicle and guide at Ol Pejeta
Twice-daily yoga sessions (optional and accessible to all levels)
Conservation education and visits to Ol Pejeta's key projects
A visit to Najin and Fatu, the last northern white rhinos
All meals and selected drinks at The Safari Cottages
Direct conservation contribution: 15–18% of your trip goes to conservancy fees + we aim to donate 50% of our profit directly to Ol Pejeta
View our Kenya retreat and upcoming dates →
Questions? Email us at hello@yogaforthewild.com — we answer within 48 hours and are happy to talk through any of our trips in detail.