Amboseli, Tarangire, the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater on a good-value cross-border safari.
The headline parks of two countries on a budget. Watch elephants beneath Kilimanjaro in Amboseli, cross into Tanzania for Tarangire's baobabs and elephant herds, spend two nights in the Serengeti and finish at the Ngorongoro Crater. Accommodation is simple but comfortable, with full board throughout.
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 Amboseli (about 4 to 5 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 Arusha (about 4 to 5 hours, including the Namanga border crossing), with a picnic lunch or lunch stop on the way. You arrive in Arusha after clearing the border and check in to your hotel to freshen up. A short briefing covers the Tanzanian leg of your journey.
After breakfast, travel from Arusha to Tarangire (about 2 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.
After breakfast, travel from Tarangire to Serengeti (a long but scenic day of 7 to 8 hours through the Ngorongoro highlands), with a picnic lunch or lunch stop on the way. 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.
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, drive back to Arusha (about 4 hours) and connect to your onward flight or the shuttle to Nairobi.
