8-Day Wonders of Kenya and Tanzania Luxury Safari

You'll leave Nairobi in the morning, either by light aircraft to one of the Mara's airstrips or by road across the Great Rift Valley escarpment, a drive of around five to six hours with stops for photographs over the valley floor. Arriving at Mara Sopa Lodge in time for lunch, you'll get your first sense of the reserve's rolling grassland, dotted with acacia and, in season, grazing wildebeest and zebra.

In the late afternoon your guide takes you out for an orientation game drive across the plains near the lodge. This is prime territory for lion prides and topi, and the low light draws out the colour of the grass. You'll return to camp as the sky reddens, ready for dinner and a briefing on the days ahead.

An early start puts you in the vehicle while the air is still cool, when lions and hyenas are often finishing a night's hunting before the heat sets in. Your guide works the drainage lines and open plains around the lodge, areas known for cheetah sightings and large herds of buffalo. You'll return to Mara Sopa Lodge for a late breakfast and a break through the warmer midday hours.

The afternoon drive pushes further out, often toward the Talek River area, where elephant family groups come down to drink and giraffe browse the acacia line. Your guide reads tracks and radio updates from other vehicles to follow the day's activity. You'll be back at the lodge in time to watch the light fade over dinner.

Today's focus is the Mara River itself, roughly forty five minutes from the lodge depending on which crossing point your guide chooses. Hippo pods gather in the deeper bends, snorting and jostling through the morning heat, while Nile crocodiles bask motionless on the sandbanks. If the wildebeest migration is in the area between July and October, you may reach the riverbank in time to watch a crossing attempt.

After a picnic lunch by the river, the afternoon drive loops back through open savannah, where lion prides often rest up in the shade of sausage trees. Your guide points out fresh tracks and dung to explain what has passed through overnight. You'll return to Mara Sopa Lodge for your last dinner on the Kenyan side.

After breakfast you'll drive south toward the Isebania border post, the formalities usually taking under an hour before you cross into Tanzania. The Mara and Serengeti are one continuous ecosystem, and the landscape barely changes at the border, though the grass tends to grow longer on the Tanzanian side. From the crossing it is a further two to three hours to Serengeti Serena, much of it across open plains where you'll likely see your first Serengeti giraffe and gazelle.

You'll stop for a picnic lunch en route, timed to a shaded spot with a view over the grassland. Arriving at Serengeti Serena Lodge in the mid-afternoon, perched on a ridge above the Seronera valley, you'll have time to settle in before an early dinner.

Your morning game drive covers the Seronera valley, the heart of the Serengeti's resident lion population, where prides are often found draped over the granite kopjes that punctuate the plains. Leopards favour the sausage trees and riverine strips along the Seronera River, and your guide will scan the branches for a tail hanging down. You'll return to the lodge for lunch and a rest through the hottest part of the day.

In the afternoon you head out again as the light softens, when cheetah on the open grassland become more active in the cooler air. Elephant herds move through the acacia woodland toward the river, and hyena clans begin to stir near their dens. You'll be back at Serengeti Serena for dinner as the plains darken around you.

With a full day still ahead, your guide takes you further from Seronera, toward the Moru Kopjes or the western corridor depending on where recent sightings have been reported. These granite outcrops hold their own resident lions and offer views across miles of open grass, and if the migration is passing through, you may find large columns of wildebeest and zebra moving in single file.

A picnic lunch is taken out on the plains, often near a kopje where rock hyrax dart between the boulders. The return drive in the afternoon takes a different route back to the lodge, giving you a second look at territory you may have missed in the morning. Dinner at Serengeti Serena rounds off your final night in the Serengeti.

After a final morning drive through the Seronera area, you'll set off for Ngorongoro, a journey of around three to four hours that climbs steadily out of the Serengeti plains into highland forest. The road switches back up the crater's outer slopes, and as you gain altitude the vegetation changes from dry grassland to montane forest hung with moss and lichen.

You'll reach Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge, built on the eastern rim at over 2,200 metres, in the early afternoon. The air here is noticeably cooler than on the plains below. From the lodge grounds and dining terrace you'll get your first views down into the crater floor, some 600 metres below, a preview of tomorrow's descent.

You'll leave the lodge early and descend the steep access road onto the crater floor, arriving as the morning mist is still lifting off the grassland. Ngorongoro's enclosed floor holds an unusually dense concentration of wildlife, including the crater's well known black rhino, along with resident lion prides, large buffalo herds and flocks of flamingo along the soda lake margins where conditions allow. Your guide keeps to the network of tracks that loop past Lerai Forest and the Ngoitokitok springs area.

A picnic lunch is taken beside one of the crater's hippo pools before you begin the climb back up to the rim. From there you'll be driven to Kilimanjaro International Airport or Arusha, a drive of around three to four hours, in time for your onward or homeward flight.