7-Day Masai Mara, Serengeti and Ngorongoro Safari

You'll be met at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and transferred to your Nairobi hotel, a drive of around 45 minutes depending on traffic on Mombasa Road. The rest of the day is free to rest after your flight, with time to reset before an early start tomorrow.

Your guide will brief you in the evening on the route to the Maasai Mara, the driving time involved, and what to expect from the days ahead. Nairobi sits at close to 1,700 metres, so the evening air is noticeably cool compared to the plains you'll reach tomorrow.

You'll leave Nairobi after breakfast for the drive to the Maasai Mara, roughly five to six hours including a stop at the Rift Valley viewpoint, where the escarpment drops away below you. The tarmac gives way to murram road as you descend onto the savannah, and you'll reach Enkorok Mara Camp in time for a late lunch.

In the afternoon you'll head out on your first game drive, with your guide reading the grass and treelines for the resident lion prides, and often elephant and giraffe moving across open ground as the light softens. You'll return to camp for dinner under canvas.

You'll rise early for a final game drive while the Mara is at its coolest and most active, tracking along drainage lines and open plains where cheetah are often seen scanning for opportunity. Breakfast follows back at camp, giving your guide time to talk through anything you've spotted over the two drives.

Mid-morning you'll begin the drive back to Nairobi, retracing the route past the Rift Valley escarpment. You'll arrive in Nairobi in the late afternoon and check into your hotel, with the evening free ahead of tomorrow's border crossing into Tanzania.

After breakfast you'll set off for the Namanga border post, around three hours south of Nairobi, where you'll clear Kenyan and Tanzanian immigration on foot before continuing into Tanzania. Your guide will handle the paperwork and timing, and you'll have a short stretch to change vehicles or currency if needed.

The road on to Arusha runs through open cattle country with Mount Meru rising ahead on clear days. You'll check into Arusha Planet Lodge by early evening, with time to unpack and rest before dinner. This is a transit day, setting up tomorrow's drive into the Serengeti.

You'll leave Arusha after breakfast for the drive west, climbing through coffee and banana country before entering Ngorongoro Conservation Area and rising over the crater highlands, where the road tops out above 2,200 metres with views down into the caldera. From there the route drops onto the short-grass plains that mark the edge of the Serengeto.

You'll stop for lunch en route, then continue into Serengeti National Park itself, where the light traffic thins and the horizon opens into grassland running to the edge of sight. Depending on your arrival time, you'll have an afternoon game drive, watching for lion, hyena and, in season, the migration herds.

You'll spend the morning on a further game drive through the Serengeti, using the cooler hours to track predators along the kopjes and drainage lines before the heat sets the plains still. Your guide will time the drive so you're back at camp for a late breakfast and checkout.

In the afternoon you'll drive east, climbing back up out of the Serengeti and into the Ngorongoro highlands, through montane forest thick with olive trees and, often, buffalo and elephant moving between the treeline. You'll reach your lodge on the crater rim by early evening, with the caldera floor visible far below and temperatures noticeably cooler at this altitude.

You'll descend into the Ngorongoro Crater early, dropping around 600 metres on a steep switchback track to reach the caldera floor while the morning light is still low. The crater holds a dense concentration of wildlife within its rim, and your guide will work the swamps, soda lake margins and open grassland for lion, black rhino, elephant and large herds of buffalo and wildebeest.

You'll have a picnic lunch beside the Ngoitokitok springs before climbing back out of the crater in the early afternoon. From the rim you'll drive back down through the highlands to Arusha, arriving in the evening in time for your onward flight or a final night at Arusha Planet Lodge.