Maasai Mara, Samburu & Amboseli

You'll fly from Nairobi into one of the Mara's airstrips, a scenic 45-minute hop over the Rift Valley escarpment before the plains open out below. Your guide meets you on arrival and drives you to Mara Sopa Lodge, set on a rise above the Oloolaimutia gorge with views across open grassland where zebra and topi graze in loose herds.

After lunch and a chance to settle in, you'll head out for your first game drive as the afternoon light softens and animals become more active. This stretch of the reserve is classic Big Five country, and your guide will work the drainage lines and thickets where lion prides often rest up during the heat of the day. You'll return to the lodge for dinner as the bush settles into dusk.

An early start puts you on the plains while the light is still low and predators are most likely to be moving. You'll head out before breakfast, tracking through open grassland toward the Talek or Mara River area depending on where the herds are concentrated, watching for lion, cheetah and the resident hyena clans that work these territories at first light. Breakfast is taken back at the lodge, giving you a break from the heat before the reserve fills with the midday sun.

The afternoon drive pushes further into the reserve, often toward the river itself, where hippo pods hold the deeper pools and crocodiles bask on the sandbanks. Elephant herds move through the riverine woodland here, and giraffe are common along the tree line. Depending on the season, you may cross paths with the wildebeest migration moving between the Mara and the Serengeti. Dinner and overnight again at Mara Sopa Lodge.

After an early breakfast you'll transfer to the airstrip for a flight north to Samburu, crossing a marked change in landscape as the green Mara plains give way to the dry, red-soil country of the Ewaso Nyiro river basin. Your guide meets you at the strip and drives you to Samburu Sopa Lodge, positioned above the riverbank with a clear line of sight down to the water.

Samburu holds species you won't have seen further south, and the afternoon game drive is built around finding them: the long-necked gerenuk browsing upright on hind legs, reticulated giraffe with their sharp geometric markings, Grevy's zebra with narrower stripes than their plains cousins, and Somali ostrich. Elephant families work the riverbanks and doum palm groves, digging for water in the dry sand when the surface flow runs low. You'll return to the lodge for dinner as the light drops over the Ewaso Nyiro.

A further short flight takes you south to Amboseli, where the terrain flattens into dusty plains and seasonal swamps beneath the bulk of Kilimanjaro, usually clearest in the early morning before cloud builds around the summit. Your guide collects you and heads straight into a game drive through the swamp margins, where Amboseli's large elephant herds gather to drink and wallow, often with the mountain framing the scene behind them.

You'll check into Amboseli Sopa Lodge for lunch, with the afternoon left for a final drive around the Enkongo Narok or Longinye swamps, where buffalo, hippo and a wide range of waterbirds concentrate around the permanent water. This is also good ground for spotting lion moving along the swamp edges in the late afternoon. Depending on your onward flight time, you'll transfer to the airstrip for your return flight to Nairobi, closing out the safari.