Kenya and Tanzania Overland: Maasai Mara, Serengeti and Ngorongoro, 9 Nights

You are met after customs at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and introduced to your Kenyan driver-guide. After a briefing on the route and the border crossing later in the week, you are driven to the hotel for a quiet afternoon and dinner. Check tonight that your passport has at least six months’ validity and two blank pages; you will need both at the border.

A short drive by Kenyan safari standards, two to three hours, with a stop at a viewpoint on the escarpment where the Great Rift Valley opens out below. Lunch is at the lakeside lodge. In the afternoon an hour’s boat ride on Lake Naivasha takes you among hippos, pelicans and fish eagles. Dinner is at the lodge.

The drive west leaves the lakes behind and crosses Maasai rangeland to reach the reserve around lunchtime. After a break at camp, the first game drive goes out in the late afternoon across the grassland, looking for lion, cheetah and elephant among the herds of zebra, topi and gazelle. You are back at camp for dinner.

A game drive soon after sunrise, the best time to find predators after a night’s hunting, then back to camp for breakfast and a rest through the heat of the day. The second drive runs from late afternoon to sunset. A dawn hot-air balloon flight with a bush breakfast can be added on any Mara morning.

A long day out from mid-morning to late afternoon with a picnic lunch, which lets you reach parts of the reserve that a short drive cannot, such as the Mara River, where crocodiles and hippos gather and where the migration crosses in season. A cooked breakfast in the bush before setting out can be arranged at extra cost.

The longest day of the safari. The drive south to the Isebania–Sirari border takes six to seven hours; after immigration formalities you change to a Tanzanian vehicle and guide and continue for about four hours into the Serengeti, arriving at your lodge in the evening. A light-aircraft route between the two parks can be quoted if you prefer a shorter day.

Morning and afternoon drives across the Serengeti’s vast plains, kopjes and riverine woodland. Lions, leopards in the sausage trees and big herds of plains game are resident all year, and from roughly December to March the migration herds gather in the south of the park to calve. Your guide follows the latest sightings. Dinner and overnight are at the Serengeti lodge.

An early start from the Serengeti across the highlands to the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater, then down the steep track to the floor for a crater tour with a packed lunch. The walls of this collapsed volcano hold a small world of lion, elephant, buffalo, hippo and one of Tanzania’s last black rhino populations. In the evening you climb out to Karatu for the night.

A gentle morning after the big days. The road from Karatu passes coffee farms and villages and drops across the Rift Valley towards Arusha, the safari town at the foot of Mount Meru, a drive of two and a half to three hours. The afternoon is free for the town’s markets or a coffee-farm visit, and dinner is at the hotel.

After breakfast a private vehicle takes you to Kilimanjaro International Airport, about an hour away, for your onward flight. If your international ticket starts from Nairobi rather than Kilimanjaro, a short regional flight or a shuttle back to Nairobi is needed and can be booked at extra cost.