6-Day Maasai Mara, Lake Nakuru & Amboseli Mid-Range Safari

Day-by-day itinerary

Route: Nairobi → Maasai Mara → Lake Nakuru → Amboseli → Nairobi

1. Day 1

   Nairobi to Maasai Mara

   Your safari begins in Nairobi, where you meet your driver-guide and set out after breakfast for the Maasai Mara. The road climbs out of the capital and onto the escarpment before descending the wall of the Great Rift Valley, with long views over the valley floor, and continues through Narok and the Maasai grazing country beyond. You reach the reserve around the middle of the day, check in at your mid-range camp or lodge and take lunch before heading out on an afternoon game drive across the open savanna. Dinner and overnight are in the Maasai Mara.

2. Day 2

   Full-Day Maasai Mara Safari

   The whole day is given to the Maasai Mara, beginning with an early drive while the air is cool and the plains are at their most active. Your guide works the grasslands, riverine woodland and open country of the reserve, an ecosystem known for its resident big cats, and you can look for lion, cheetah, elephant, giraffe, buffalo and large herds of plains game as the day unfolds. Depending on the plan for the day, lunch is either taken back at camp or carried as a picnic so you can stay out longer among the wildlife. Sightings vary with season, movement and conditions, so no two days in the Mara are alike. You return to your camp or lodge for dinner and a second night in the reserve.

3. Day 3

   Maasai Mara to Lake Nakuru

   After breakfast you leave the Maasai Mara and travel north-east out of the reserve toward Lake Nakuru, following the Rift Valley floor through Narok and the farming towns of the Nakuru region. The landscape changes noticeably along the way, trading the Mara's open savanna for cultivated highland country and the escarpments that frame the valley. You arrive at Lake Nakuru National Park, check in and head out on a game drive around the lake, a fenced sanctuary where there is a genuine possibility of seeing both black and white rhino alongside Rothschild's giraffe, buffalo and waterbuck. Flamingo numbers on the soda lake rise and fall with water levels, so the birdlife differs from visit to visit. Dinner and overnight are in the Nakuru area.

4. Day 4

   Lake Nakuru to Amboseli

   Today is the longest transfer of the safari, so you leave Lake Nakuru after an early breakfast. The road runs back south through the Rift Valley and skirts Nairobi before continuing into the drier Maasai rangeland of Kajiado, and the scenery shifts from green highland farmland to the open, dusty plains of southern Kenya. You arrive at Amboseli in the afternoon, check in at your camp or lodge and, conditions permitting, head out for an evening game drive across the park's plains and spring-fed swamps. Amboseli is best known for its free-ranging elephant families, and on clear days Mount Kilimanjaro rises beyond the plains, though cloud often hides the summit. Dinner and overnight are in Amboseli.

5. Day 5

   Full-Day Amboseli Safari

   A full day in Amboseli lets you explore the park well beyond the areas reached on a short visit, starting with a morning drive when the light is low and the mountain is most often clear. The swamps at the heart of the park stay green through the drier months and draw elephant, buffalo, zebra and wildebeest into concentrated groups, so this is good country in which to look for large elephant families at close range. Water birds gather in numbers around the wetlands, and the open plains give the long sightlines the park is known for. If the weather cooperates, Kilimanjaro forms a backdrop to the day, but the mountain is frequently veiled in cloud and clear views cannot be relied upon. You return to your camp or lodge for dinner and a second night in Amboseli.

6. Day 6

   Amboseli to Nairobi

   Your last morning begins with breakfast and, where time allows, a short final game drive before you leave the park. You then depart Amboseli and travel north by road toward Nairobi, retracing the route through Kajiado and the Maasai rangeland as the plains give way to the highland approaches to the city. Arrival in Nairobi is normally in the afternoon, where the safari ends with a drop-off at your hotel or at the airport for onward arrangements. Your driver-guide will confirm the departure time with you on the day so the transfer fits your onward plans.