We came for three nights and stayed for three weeks. The team treated us like family, the creek became our morning ritual, and the food from the garden was the best thing we ate in Kenya. We will be back, and soon.

Distant Relatives is the rare place that lives up to the photos and the reviews. Quietly run, beautifully placed on the creek, and full of small kindnesses you only notice on day three. A real refuge.

I wrote a list of things I loved on the back of a napkin: dawn paddles, the cashew trees, breakfast under thatch, the staff, the way the rooms breathe. I lost the napkin but I remember every line.