Day 1: Tsavo East
Our driver guide will pick you up from your hotel and drive down to Kenya’s largest game reserve, Tsavo East National Park. In no time, you will enter the park through the Tsavo gate and start your game drive en-route to Voi Safari Lodge for check-in and lunch.
Tsavo East is home to over 700 of the famous Tsavo lions, renowned in the past as fierce predators. Here, too, on your first game drives, you’ll be looking for buffalos, cheetahs, elephants, giraffes, zebras, gazelles, and dozens more species.
Dinner and overnight at Voi Safari Lodge or similar
Day 2: Tsavo East / Amboseli
We’ll be up with the sun to catch the first stirrings of nature with an early morning game drive. Then we’ll exit Tsavo on the way to Amboseli National Park, which lies in the shadow of towering Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa.
Though not nearly as expensive as Tsavo, Amboseli’s smaller size provides many opportunities to view its abundant game – especially its elephants. The park of known as perhaps the best spot in Africa for spotting free-ranging elephants. There’s also plenty of other wildlife here as well as hundreds of bird species. And of course, great views of Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Day 3: Amboseli / Lake Naivasha
Another early morning will bring us an African sunrise and possibly views of Kilimanjaro’s snowcapped peak if the clouds break. After breakfast, we’ll depart Amboseli with a final game drive.
We’ll head through the Great Rift Valley and stop in the capital of Nairobi for lunch before proceeding on to Lake Naivasha. The lake here is the Rift Valley’s highest and is ringed with cacti and olive trees. We’ll take a water safari and look for giraffes and zebras along the shore as we glide past neighbouring hippos in the lake.
Day 4: Lake Naivasha / Hell’s Gate / Lake Nakuru
From Lake Naivasha, it’s a quick hop to Hell’s Gate National Park, where we’ll take a bicycle safari riding past zebras, giraffes, impalas, and buffalos, amongst the imposing escarpments. And then we’ll enjoy a bonus walking safari at nearby Crescent Island.
From there it’s only a one-hour drive to Lake Nakuru National Park to see the beauty of an acacia forest, plus Rothschild’s giraffes, rhinos, lions, warthogs, and even leopards. The park is also known for its birdlife including pelicans and flamingos.
Day 5: Lake Nakuru / Maasai Mara
We’ll complete our Lake Nakuru experience with an early morning game drive as we exit the park. We are now making tracks to perhaps the most famous park in Kenya – Maasai Mara National Reserve.
The Mara is a picture postcard of Africa with its rolling savannahs, acacia trees, and endless herds of migrating zebras and wildebeests. Here there are boundless populations of lions, leopards, cheetahs, and gazelles, plus hyenas, jackals, buffalos, and more.
We’ll arrive here in time for some afternoon game drives just to whet your appetite, for this is the beginning of our 3-day span in the park.
Day 6: Maasai Mara
This will be an exciting day of unlimited game drives through the grasslands of the Mara. Africa’s “Big Five” are a feature of the park and we’ll be on the lookout for them.
We will lunch by the Mara River and during the migration season (July – October) witness the crossing of thousands of zebras, wildebeests, and crocodiles waiting for them in the murky waters.
Day 7 – Maasai Mara / Nairobi
We’ll be up with the wildlife for a pre-breakfast game drive to get in maximum viewing time. Then, after breakfast, we’ll exit the park for one final game drive and then we’re off to Nairobi.
In Nairobi, have your choice of an evening flight to Mombasa or take a modern train back to the Coast. You can wash off the “safari dust” back at your resort as you recall your adventures in Kenya’s greatest parks