What a 5-Star Luxury Safari Taught Me

It had nothing to do with luxury. The opposite, actually.

I was standing in a field of golden monkeys. A bamboo forest at the edge of it, an ancient volcano hiding in the mist. The monkeys foraged through the grass while we watched, and then the guide came to my side and quietly said it was time to go.

Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda. At the edge of the bamboo forest, where my trip came to an end and I ceremoniously left my trekking shoes in the hands of my guide, to give to someone back home in the Maasai Mara.

That was the end of Africa.

I walked back through the village to the carpark, found my driver, and closed the door.

I’ve been home a week, and this is the first I’ve been able to write.

I want to tell you it was jet lag. Some of it was. But the truer thing is that I walked back into a life where everything has a place, where I am almost painfully organized, and I felt paralyzed.

I stood in my closet and couldn’t move.

Bags I still hadn’t unpacked. Hangers so full I couldn’t slip one more thing between them. I had just spent multiple days an arm’s length from the Big Five, in a world I never thought I’d get to stand in, and I came back to all of this and something in me wouldn’t settle.

So I didn’t force it. I took the week. I cleared my own field before I let myself write about theirs.

And now I can tell you what I discovered.

When I arrived, I fell in love. How could I not?

It was a scene out of Out of Africa. I felt like Meryl Streep among antiques and heirlooms that made the place look more like a film set than a life anyone actually gets to live. I kept waiting for Robert Redford to walk in, scotch in hand, ready for an evening of storytelling by the fire.

&Beyond Bateleur Camp had set the stage. Crystal on white linen. Leather campaign chairs at the edge of the deck, looking out over a sweeping stretch of plain with a single elephant on the horizon.

And then my room.

A tent, yes. But one with a teak door and walls papered in antique maps. A bar cart styled like Ralph Lauren himself had come to arrange it. A crystal decanter labeled SHERRY.

And a brass tub facing a wall of glass, the plain sitting right there, the first thing I’d see in the morning. On the other side of beautiful screened doors that stayed locked all night, but still let the sounds of the Mara seep in. A candle inside a large hurricane votive flickered across the ceiling. Just enough to see by if we needed to get up. Just enough, in the otherwise dark vista.

The world my teenage self would have dreamed of, come to life.

So yes, I was completely surrounded by luxury. And I own the fact that I love beautiful things.

It’s not what I came from.

I grew up often wearing the same outfit to school two days in a row, hoping no one would notice. I can distinctly remember the one. Black corduroy pants. A green cardigan sweater with a white shirt. And brown boots that were my prized possession. I loved that outfit for everything it was and hated it for everything it wasn’t.

Wearing it made me feel like I fit in. But rewearing it (out of necessity) left me standing outside the inner circle I desperately wanted to live inside. And in high school, that can do a lot to a girl’s psyche. It certainly did mine.

It’s no surprise that I’ve spent much of my adult life surrounding myself with beautiful things. It’s not that I wanted to be as far from that girl as I could get, it’s that my subconscious drove me directly toward everything she envisioned when I finally had the means to make it my own. Somewhere along the way, though, appreciation quietly became accumulation. One more sweater. Another purse or pair of shoes. Beautiful things disappearing into a closet already full of them.

I recall walking through the Ralph Lauren store in downtown Minneapolis during those formative years of my life. I was never the patron. I was the plus one to the friend whose parent was there to meet their personal shopper. Mindfully absorbing every detail. It was a world far from my own, where timeless elegance met quiet luxury. Where worn leather, soft cashmere, warm wood, and objects felt as though they’d been collected over a lifetime, each detail carrying its own story. It felt lived-in, in the most sophisticated way.

Standing in this camp, in the middle of the open plains of Kenya, felt like stepping into the world my teenage self would have dreamed up if someone had handed her an unlimited budget, assigned her a personal shopper, and told her to go big.She would have loved every inch of it.

And here’s what she never could have imagined and what I didn’t expect.

When we woke early the morning after our arrival, something inside of me began to rearrange.

Because when the coffee arrived, on the silver tray, along with the 4:30 AM wakeup call, I stopped insisting on my own preferences and allowed myself to receive what the experience offered. Admittedly though, my gut is only now catching up. But everything exciting in the Mara happens as the sun begins to climb and in the afternoon as dusk falls. Embracing both required something from me. It required a kind of surrender I’d never allowed myself. One that asked me to soften my edges and let go of what I could control.

There was no shortage of luxury… or silver platters.

When I stepped into a basket and lifted off the ground, hovering over the Mara in a hot air balloon, with the lens of the camera stretched as far as it would go with no end in sight, I experienced peace.

Champagne brunch is acceptable when the wakeup call is 4:30 AM

Everywhere I looked. Just peace.

And trust me, as the day carried on, and when the lion turned toward our vehicle, the adrenaline went through me like a current. But our guide just sat there. Calm. A true she-warrior, and the embodiment of fierce grace.

And the lion passed just as she knew it would.

The elephants and cheetahs did the same.

We saw it all. From near and far. The herds of animals slowly migrating from the Serengeti, where I stood directly between Tanzania and Kenya. There is something special about being able to check another country off the list by simply placing a foot over the imaginary but real dividing line.

And the kills with the vultures hovering. We experienced those too. The Mara didn’t hold back for us. We got the full show.

And still, in the middle of all of it, the elephant bull charging our vehicle and the lions mating less than ten yards away. Peace.

There was nothing not to love (well, maybe the constant dust, but that's what the scarf was for). The whole experience left me in awe and wonder. And this is only a fraction of what my camera has stored.

I loved all of it. It was everything I imagined it would be.

But what I loved most was how at ease I felt.

Yes, I came with the outfit. Curated for every part of the journey, of course. That’s me. That will always be me.

But out there, it wasn’t even needed and it wasn’t what mattered.

And maybe that’s the thing I’m only now realizing. Because arriving home and standing in my closet with hangers I could barely slip a piece of paper between, I was both as far from Africa as I could get and worlds away from the peace I felt when I was there.

Before I could even sit down to write, I had to clear my own field. And I did. I’ll continue to—not to whittle my life down to only the essentials, but to create room for beauty to be seen again. To build from the beauty I already have. Because I will always be the girl in awe in the Ralph Lauren store. But I am no longer chasing.

Africa didn’t make me love beautiful things any less. If anything, it made me appreciate them more.

It’s not lost on me that I’ve spent years trying to surround myself with beauty, only to discover I’d collected so much of it that I could no longer fully appreciate what was already there.

Africa reminded me of something I’ve overlooked.

Beauty needs space.

Space to be noticed. Space to be worn. Space to become part of your life instead of another thing tucked onto an already crowded shelf.

I’ll always love beautiful things.

I just don’t have the same need to be consumed by it anymore. And when I pack for the next safari (which is already in the making) or the next adventure, I will curate it with ease and unpack it without paralysis.

Always EDITing,

Leslie

P.S. There is a Part Three to this series. Of course there is. I’m still unpacking that one too. It will arrive… soon.

P.P.S. These are the pieces that made the edit. The ones I’m making space for. The ones that will get repacked for the next safari and will continue to wear, rewear, and love for years to come.

Safari Essentials

Layering is the name of the game when packing for safari. It gets super dusty driving through the open plains of the Mara, and the days start really early. Hats are key, both to make for an easy morning departure and to keep the wind from tying knots in your hair. Scarves help combat the dust and keep you warm. I was so grateful for each of these pieces.

• SoldOut.NYC sweater — a great layering piece over my Zara t-shirts.

• James Perse pants — packed light and wore well.

• VEJA tennis shoes — traveled to both Ireland and Africa, and are now a mainstay in my closet.

• Miu Miu hat — a splurge, but worth it for both safari and gorilla trekking. I even shared it with my roomie, who looked darling in it.

• Rag & Bone cap — felt too appropriate not to take along plus it was on sale when I bought it.

• Velvet sarong — doubled as a skirt and a scarf, and folds to nothing when packing.

• Kujten and ASHA scarves — splurges as well, but will be worn for a lifetime.

• Warby Parker progressive reader sunglasses — I’m at the age where readers are required, and on safari, sunglasses are a must against the dust. These doubled as both my readers and my sunnies all week.

Cheers from the Mara. That's Sandi in the shared Miu Miu hat — I told you she looked darling.