David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Tour

Dame Daphne Sheldrick spent 28 years raising orphaned elephants, figuring out through heartbreaking trial and error what nobody had cracked before: the exact milk formula that would keep a newborn African elephant alive. The trust she founded has now hand-raised over 260 elephant calves and successfully reintroduced more than 150 back into Tsavo National Park.

When you visit during the daily public feeding, you see the babies up close — toddlers really, pushing each other over, rolling in the mud, getting told off by their keepers. A keeper introduces each elephant by name, tells you where it was rescued — a well, a poacher's snare, orphaned by drought — and explains what happens next: the gradual weaning, the move to a reintegration unit in Tsavo, and eventually, the walk back into the wild.

The trust also rehabilitates black rhinos, and you will likely see the resident rhinos in their enclosures nearby. Entry is by donation. Worth arriving ten minutes early for a good spot at the ropes. The public session runs for one hour, from 11:00 AM to noon, and it fills up. After the feeding, you can browse the small shop — adopting an elephant costs $50 a year and gets you monthly updates and a watercolour painting of your calf.