Growing Up on Safari: Reflections from Calvin Cottar

A fifth-generation Kenyan safari guide on childhood in the bush, the leopardess that changed everything, and why conservation is personal.

People often ask me what it was like to grow up in the bush. The honest answer is that I don't have much to compare it to - it was simply life. Every part of it shaped the way I think about safari, conservation and the future of this extraordinary place we call home.

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A Typical Day Growing Up in the Bush

A typical day for me as a young boy would begin early - getting up before sunrise and joining my dad on his morning safari. I was eager to be involved, but I also had to stay out of the way, there was serious work to be done, and it was the adults' work. As I grew up, I became more and more part of the team - it became a partnership, a companionship, a friendship. By the end of the day, I'd be exhausted and in bed early, ready to do it all over again.

My Real Teachers

My father was often occupied with guests, doing the official safari business of the day. That meant my real teachers were the incredible local Maasai people who worked for us - the gun-bearers, the trackers, and the spotters. They shared with me the signs and the secrets of the bush in their own way, interpreting the land through their eyes. They had real knowledge, the kind you cannot pick up from a book. Everything I learned from them is still with me today.

The Leopardess That Changed My Life

I think everyone has a moment where the penny drops. For me it came when I was about eighteen.

I was walking home after a run up the hills, passing through a glade surrounded by yellow fever trees. It was three o'clock in the afternoon, bright sunshine. And I saw a leopardess. She came to the edge of the glade and scanned - and she didn't see me. I had a choice, I knew if I clapped my hands she'd run, but I made the decision just to see what would happen.

I stayed still. She walked right towards me, passed by me at five feet, and disappeared into the back of the forest.

That moment was profoundly impactful. It made me realise this is really what I wanted to do with my life - and that it was worth it. But it also made me realise something harder: that leopardess will not survive unless we think differently about conservation. The glade won't survive. Those yellow fever trees won't survive. Something had to change, and I wanted to be part of changing it.

My First Safari Guiding Job at 13

I drove my first guest at around 13 or 14. I wasn't a proper guide and didn't claim to be - I had no credentials. What I had was real experience, and that day I was simply the person available. From then on, whenever no other guide was around, I'd jump in and take the wheel.

I didn't prepare in any formal way. I knew how to drive, I knew how to read the bush, and I knew how to talk about what I was seeing. So I just interpreted it - and it felt completely natural.

No classroom could have taught me what I learned from those first guests. At that age, I realised I could hold my own, and that people trusted me because I'd lived this life since I was born. I always had my tracker in the back, helping me interpret what I didn't understand, and we'd switch between English and Swahili as we went. That partnership - between guide and tracker - is still the heart of a good safari.

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Lessons from a Lifetime in the African Bush

So much of what I rely on today was absorbed as a child. It's trusting your gut. Trusting your senses. With enough time, you start to read the weather, to guess when rain will come, to anticipate how animals are going to behave. Everything compounds into who you are.

One principle above all has stayed with me: the conservation of energy. Every animal out there is trying to conserve energy. They sleep, they lie, and they move as little as possible. But when they need to move, they move. I've lain down in shady thickets through the heat of the day and had to jump up suddenly because a buffalo, or an elephant, or a lion had the same idea and was heading for the same shade. You don't waste energy - but you're ready to move fast when you have to. Sometimes for your life.

Five Generations of Cottar's Safaris Heritage

Our family's safari heritage is over a hundred years old. It stretches back to the very first safaris ever offered to guests from overseas - the birth of the whole idea of a guided safari. That's a weight, and it's a privilege. I feel a huge responsibility to carry it on, and honestly, it's what drives me more than anything. The heritage is more important than money, more important than anything else. I hope my children will feel the same way one day, because a multigenerational safari family with this kind of history - the integrity, the morality, the authenticity of it - is genuinely rare.

My goal is to take that history and interpret it in a way that works for the future of modern Africa.

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Why Conservation in Kenya Became Personal

Conservation stopped being background noise for me around the time of that leopardess. From then on I went looking for answers. I worked for Kenya Wildlife Service with Dr Richard Leakey. I spent time in wildlife management, trying to understand different approaches. I wanted to know what actually worked.

What I've come to believe is that our realistic options are narrower than people like to admit. What I'm focused on now - in Kenya at least - is directing tourism money and other resources towards land leasing for conservation. That is what will make the difference.

Tourism cannot be a passive thing. We are privileged and honoured to be here in the wilderness, and the wilderness is under pressure. Tourism has to be an agency of change if wildlife is going to stay. We have to think differently about the purpose of travel. Our money has to work harder for conservation - and conservation is ultimately about land, which is about equity, and about the socio-economic benefit of the hundreds of thousands, millions of people who live where the wildlife lives.

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My Advice for Anyone Coming on Safari in Kenya

After a lifetime in the bush, the advice I'd distill down to a single sentence is this: give yourself time.

Africa unfolds on its own terms. Be patient. You don't have to chase anything. It's all there. Trust the people you're with - have them help you hear and see what you might miss. Trust your instincts about patience. Don't rush around.

Take it easy, and Africa will absolutely give you more than you could ever imagine.