Fly from the Maasai Mara to the Serengeti, then visit Ngorongoro and Tarangire on a premium cross-border trip.
Follow the great migration ecosystem from Kenya's Maasai Mara into Tanzania's Serengeti by light aircraft, then continue by road to the Ngorongoro Crater and Tarangire. The flights save days of driving and put you in the heart of each park with time for dawn and dusk game drives.
Take a scheduled light-aircraft flight from Wilson Airport to the Maasai Mara airstrip (about 45 to 60 minutes), where your guide meets you. You arrive at your camp in time for lunch, then head out on your first game drive across the open plains of the Maasai Mara, home to lion, cheetah, elephant, buffalo and vast herds of zebra and wildebeest. Dinner and a night of lion calls follow.
Leave at first light with a packed breakfast to find big cats on the open plains. Enjoy a bush picnic lunch near the hippo pools, then spend the afternoon tracking lion, cheetah, elephant and buffalo before returning at dusk.
Drive toward the Mara River, where between July and October wildebeest herds gather to cross. Outside the migration season the banks are excellent for hippo, crocodile and elephant, and the surrounding plains for lion and cheetah.
Take a light-aircraft flight to Serengeti (about 1 to 1.5 hours; routing via Nairobi or Arusha may apply), where your guide meets you. You arrive in the Serengeti for lunch and a first afternoon game drive across endless plains. The park is home to lion, leopard, cheetah and huge herds of zebra and wildebeest, and the scale of the landscape is hard to describe.
Spend the day exploring the park's plains and river valleys with a picnic lunch in the bush. Seronera is known for lion, leopard and cheetah, and the migration herds can be tracked depending on the season.
Your guide uses the latest sightings to track the wildebeest and zebra herds, whose position shifts through the year: southern plains in the early months, western corridor around mid-year and northern Serengeti from July to October.
After breakfast, travel from Serengeti to Ngorongoro (about 3 to 4 hours), with a picnic lunch or lunch stop on the way. You arrive on the crater rim in the Ngorongoro highlands, where the air is cool and the views drop into the world's largest intact volcanic caldera. The afternoon is free to enjoy the lodge or take a short rim walk.
After breakfast, travel from Ngorongoro to Tarangire (about 3 hours), with a picnic lunch or lunch stop on the way. You arrive at your camp in time for lunch, followed by a first game drive among Tarangire's baobab trees and elephant herds, with the river a magnet for wildlife in the dry season.
Spend the day among Tarangire's large elephant herds and ancient baobab trees, with good birdlife and plenty of antelope, giraffe and buffalo, and lion and leopard on the lookout.
After breakfast, drive to Arusha (about 2 hours) for your onward flight, or connect to Nairobi.
