Amboseli, Lake Naivasha, Lake Nakuru and the Maasai Mara by camping safari.
The full Kenya circuit under canvas. Camp at Amboseli, Lake Naivasha, Lake Nakuru and the Maasai Mara, with a camp cook, shared campfire dinners and different landscapes each day. Great value for travellers who want to see a lot and do not mind simple facilities.
After an early breakfast you are collected from your Nairobi hotel and drive to Amboseli (about 4 to 5 hours). 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.
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.
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.
