Highlights of Kenya & Tanzania Safari

Your East Africa expedition begins in Nairobi. Arrive at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (NBO) and transfer to your hotel. A welcome briefing with your guide covers the ten days ahead — five parks across two countries, each with its own character and its own wildlife signature. If time allows: the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust elephant orphanage, the Giraffe Centre, and the Karen Blixen Museum are all within easy reach.

Wilderness Trail

Hemingways Nairobi

Wilderness Reserve

Hemingways Nairobi

A morning drive south from Nairobi delivers you to Amboseli National Park — where the plains stretch toward the unmistakable white dome of Mount Kilimanjaro. Amboseli's large elephant population moves across the open plains with genuine nonchalance — decades of co-existence with respectful visitors has made them among the most closely-viewable in Africa. In good light, a family of twenty elephants crossing the open plain with Kilimanjaro filling the sky behind them is one of East Africa's most powerful wildlife images. Afternoon game drive, sundowners with the Kilimanjaro silhouette, and overnight at your lodge.

Wilderness Trail

Ol Tukai Lodge

Wilderness Reserve

Tawi Lodge

The drive northwest from Amboseli crosses the Kenyan highlands and descends into the Mara — and the moment the escarpment gives way and the Mara plains open below you, something shifts. The Masai Mara National Reserve is the northern extension of the Serengeti ecosystem and the most famous wildlife destination in the world. The Mara supports the highest density of large predators in East Africa — lion, leopard, cheetah, wild dog, and hyena all operate visibly within accessible game drive territory. You arrive at camp by early afternoon and begin your first game drive as the light turns golden.

Wilderness Trail

Governors Camp

Wilderness Reserve

Kichwa Tembo Camp

A full day dedicated entirely to the Mara ecosystem — early morning game drive at first light, breakfast back at camp, full day's exploration across the plains, riverine forest, and Mara River corridor. This is the day the Mara delivers its finest. The Mara River, which forms the park's northern boundary, is the site of the Great Migration river crossings from July to October — one of nature's most visceral spectacles, as wildebeest plunge into crocodile-filled waters in their hundreds. Year-round, resident big cat sightings are world-class.

Wilderness Trail

Governors Camp

Wilderness Reserve

Kichwa Tembo Camp

The cross-border transfer from Kenya's Masai Mara into Tanzania's Serengeti is one of the great safari road journeys — a seamless transition between two countries that are, ecologically speaking, one continuous wilderness. The border crossing at Isibania is well-managed for safari traffic; your guide handles all documentation. The afternoon game drive begins immediately on entry into the Serengeti. The central plains have a different character from the Mara — wider, more open, the horizon further away — and the wildlife responds accordingly. Lion prides are larger here. The cheetah population is the densest of any protected area in Africa.

Wilderness Trail

Kubukubu Tented Lodge

Wilderness Reserve

&Beyond Serengeti Under Canvas

A full day in Africa's most iconic national park — and a day that lives up to every expectation. The Serengeti covers 14,763 square kilometres and hosts more than 2 million mammals. Beyond the Migration, the park supports Africa's highest predator density and provides the most reliable big cat sightings on the continent. Your guide knows the Serengeti intimately — which zones are producing sightings, where the leopard was seen yesterday morning, which pride is denning near the lugga. Sunrise game drive, full day's exploration, sunset return to camp.

Wilderness Trail

Kubukubu Tented Lodge

Wilderness Reserve

&Beyond Serengeti Under Canvas

The drive from the Serengeti to Ngorongoro passes through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area — itself a spectacular landscape of highland forest and Maasai pastoralism. Your guide stops at Olduvai Gorge for a brief orientation: one of the world's most significant palaeontological sites, where evidence of early human ancestors dating back 1.8 million years was unearthed. A genuinely fascinating interlude on a wildlife safari. Final approach to the crater rim and your lodge in the highland forest; dinner accompanied by the sound of the forest and, if the night is clear, an extraordinary high-altitude sky.

Wilderness Trail

Ngorongoro Farm House

Wilderness Reserve

The Manor at Ngorongoro

The descent into the Ngorongoro Crater begins at dawn. 600 metres below the rim, the caldera floor reveals one of the most extraordinary wildlife concentrations on earth — approximately 25,000 large mammals in a 20-kilometre-wide bowl. The Big Five coexist at extraordinary density. The black rhinoceros population is the most reliably viewable in East Africa. The Ngoitoktok hippo pool is the midday lunch stop — hippos surface metres from your picnic, Egyptian geese argue at the water's edge, and the crater walls rise on every side. A full day descending, exploring, and ascending the most famous volcanic caldera in Africa.

Wilderness Trail

Ngorongoro Farm House

Wilderness Reserve

The Manor at Ngorongoro

Ernest Hemingway called Lake Manyara the most beautiful lake in Africa. Pressed between the Great Rift Valley escarpment and the alkaline lake that occupies most of its 325 square kilometres, Manyara compresses an extraordinary range of habitats: dense groundwater forest at the base of the escarpment, open grassland and acacia woodland, and the flamingo-lined soda lake. The park's most celebrated residents are its tree-climbing lions — a behaviour unique to Manyara in East Africa, documented for over sixty years. Beyond the lions: elephant, buffalo, hippo, giraffe, and over 400 bird species. The afternoon light on the lake and the escarpment wall is one of Tanzania's finest photographic moments.

Wilderness Trail

Kirurumu Manyara Lodge

Wilderness Reserve

andBeyond Lake Manyara Tree Lodge

A final morning in Tanzania — and the drive north to Arusha through the agricultural highlands of the Rift Valley, with Mount Meru on the horizon and ten extraordinary days behind you. Your EWA representative meets you in Arusha for a personal farewell. Airport transfer for onward flights to Nairobi, Zanzibar, or home. Additional nights in Arusha available on request.