Kenya · Budget · Big Time pick
A 7-day budget safari through the Maasai Mara, Lake Nakuru, Lake Naivasha and Amboseli. Budget nights at Miti Mingi Eco Camp (Maasai Mara), Buraha Zenoni (Lake Nakuru), Leisure Apex (Lake Naivasha) and Nyati Safari Camp (Amboseli).
Price per person
Places as named in the journey title. Nights in each are set out in your itinerary.
Starts in Nairobi · finishes in Nairobi
The route, days and named stays are as planned. What is included at each stop, from food, park fees and drinking water to room types, permits and border arrangements, and any camp or lodge not named here, is set out in your written quotation. Game drives on travel days depend on arrival and departure times, timings can change with road and park conditions, and wildlife sightings are never guaranteed. Photographs illustrate each day’s destination; they are not pictures of a particular departure.
Nairobi → Maasai Mara
A week-long safari starts with its longest drive: from Nairobi west to the Maasai Mara in the 4×4 Land Cruiser. The base here is Miti Mingi Eco Camp, and once you have checked in, the afternoon can turn into the first game drive if time allows. Starting with the Mara sets a high bar for the days ahead, because the reserve is where many of the classic safari scenes are made: big skies, long grass and the possibility of almost anything appearing over the next rise.
Maasai Mara
The full day in the reserve is shaped by what the plains show, and by the season. When the Mara Conservancy’s migration window is open, from around June or July to November, the day may be spent near the herds; otherwise it follows the residents, from elephants and giraffes to lions in the shade. Because herd movements follow the rain, no date for the migration can be promised, and part of the pleasure is finding out what this particular day brings.
Maasai Mara → Lake Nakuru
Leaving the Mara, the road climbs out of the reserve and heads for Lake Nakuru, a park that Kenya Wildlife Service reaches from the Nairobi–Nakuru highway through Lanet, Nderit or the Main Gate near the city. The change of scene is striking: escarpment, woodland and a semi-alkaline lake instead of open savannah. The night is at Buraha Zenoni, which our catalogue names for Lake Nakuru, close enough to the park for an early start in the morning.
Lake Nakuru → Lake Naivasha
Morning in Lake Nakuru National Park is spent looking for its rhinos and for the waterbirds that first earned the lake its protection in 1961. By the afternoon the journey has moved on to Lake Naivasha, which could hardly be more different: fresh water rather than semi-alkaline, fringed with papyrus and recognised as a Ramsar wetland. Leisure Apex, our catalogue’s property for Naivasha, is where the day ends, within easy reach of the shore.
Lake Naivasha → Amboseli
This is the journey’s big transfer, from the Rift Valley lakes down to Amboseli near the Tanzanian border. A last look at Lake Naivasha’s shore, where hippos graze the grassland, is followed by the road south, which Kenya Wildlife Service describes as entering Amboseli either from Emali through Iremito Gate or from Namanga through Meshanani Gate. Nyati Safari Camp is the evening stop, with the park’s elephants waiting for the morning.
Amboseli
Amboseli is a park best enjoyed slowly, watching the elephant families that Kenya Wildlife Service describes in large herds, moving between the dry plains and the green swamps. The open landscape makes them easy to follow, and Kilimanjaro, when the clouds part, adds a backdrop few parks can match. Observation Hill gives the wider view, and the swamps and marshes reward birders with waterbirds, birds of prey and, when the lake basin holds water, sometimes flamingos.
Amboseli → Nairobi
The final day begins in Amboseli with a chance for one more drive among the herds before the road back to Nairobi. The park was gazetted in 1974 and is one of Kenya’s Important Bird Areas, so even the last stretch through the park can turn up something new. By the evening you are back in the capital, with a week of very different landscapes behind you, from the Mara’s grassland to the lakes of the Rift Valley and the swamps beneath Kilimanjaro.
Like the shape of these days? Tell us your dates and who is travelling, and our team will set out the stays, meals and inclusions in a written quotation.
Maasai Mara · Budget
Lake Nakuru · Budget
Lake Naivasha · Budget
Amboseli · Budget
Maasai Mara · Nakuru · Naivasha · Amboseli · Tsavo East
Budget nights at Miti Mingi Eco Camp (Maasai Mara), Buraha Zenoni (Lake Nakuru), Leisure Apex (Lake Naivasha) and Nyati Safari Camp (Amboseli), with camp or lodge stays at the other stops.
Maasai Mara · Lake Nakuru · Lake Naivasha · Amboseli
Lodge accommodation, with Buraha Zenoni (Lake Nakuru).
Maasai Mara · Lake Naivasha · Lake Nakuru · Amboseli
Accommodation is in lodges.
Tell us your dates, who is travelling and anything you would like to change. Our team will tell you what this journey can include.
