Tsavo, Amboseli, Lake Naivasha, Lake Nakuru and the Maasai Mara on a joining group safari.
Ten days across Kenya's key parks with a small group of fellow travellers. See Tsavo's red elephants, Amboseli's herds under Kilimanjaro, Lake Naivasha, Lake Nakuru's rhinos and the Maasai Mara, all with an experienced guide and shared costs that suit solo budgets.
You are met at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport by your Dawn Safaris representative and transferred to your hotel. Your guide gives a short briefing on the days ahead and answers any last-minute questions.
After breakfast, travel from Nairobi to Tsavo (about 4 to 5 hours), with a picnic lunch or lunch stop on the way. You arrive at camp by mid-afternoon for a first game drive through Tsavo's red-dust landscape of savannah and volcanic hills, looking for elephant, buffalo, lion and the park's rich birdlife.
Visit Mzima Springs, where crystal-clear water bubbles up from Chyulu volcanic filters and hippos and crocodiles can be seen from the viewing platform, then explore the Shetani lava flows and nearby game plains.
After breakfast, travel from Tsavo to Amboseli (about 3 hours), with a picnic lunch or lunch stop on the way. You arrive at your lodge in time for lunch. An afternoon game drive across the open plains brings you close to Amboseli's famous elephant herds, with Mount Kilimanjaro rising behind them when the clouds lift.
Spend the day with some of Africa's best-studied elephant herds. Early light is the best time to see Kilimanjaro, and the swamps around Enkongo Narok draw hippo, buffalo and abundant birdlife.
After breakfast, travel from Amboseli to Lake Naivasha (about 6 to 7 hours via Nairobi), with a picnic lunch or lunch stop on the way. Check in to your lakeside lodge for lunch, then take an afternoon boat ride on the freshwater lake among hippos, fish eagles and pelicans, with time to walk on Crescent Island among grazing giraffe and zebra.
After breakfast, travel from Lake Naivasha to Lake Nakuru (about 1.5 hours), with a picnic lunch or lunch stop on the way. Check in for lunch, then enjoy a first game drive around Lake Nakuru, a protected rhino sanctuary where white and black rhino, Rothschild's giraffe and buffalo share the acacia woodland with pelicans and, depending on lake levels, flamingos along the shore.
After breakfast, travel from Lake Nakuru to Maasai Mara (about 4 to 5 hours), with a picnic lunch or lunch stop on the way. 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.
After breakfast, and one last morning game drive if time allows, you drive back to Nairobi (about 5 to 6 hours) with a lunch stop on the way. You are dropped at your hotel or at the airport; an evening flight home is recommended.
