Women-only Kenya: Lake Nakuru and the Masai Mara

1. Day 1: Arrive in Nairobi, an easy first evening

   Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to your hotel in Nairobi

   • Drive about 1 h
   • Light welcome supper
   • Stay in Nairobi
   Day 1 details

   Fly into Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (NBO), south-east of the city centre, at any time of day. A driver meets you in the arrivals hall and takes you to your hotel; allow up to an hour, because Nairobi traffic can be slow. Nothing is planned for the afternoon: check in, sleep off the flight, or sit in the hotel garden. The city sits at about 1,700 m, so evenings are cool even though it lies just south of the equator. At about 6:30 pm your See Sight Tours guide, who is a woman, meets the group for a short briefing on the week: how the game drives and the vehicle seating work, what to wear where, what to pack for the small plane on day 7, how rooms and tents are shared, and what life is like in an unfenced camp. We stay for a light welcome supper close to the hotel and finish early, so the first full day starts rested. Land by about 4 pm to join the supper; later arrivals are met and briefed at breakfast.

   Included

   • Pick-up at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (NBO)
   • Welcome briefing with your guide
   • Light welcome supper near the hotel

   Free time: Free until the evening briefing

   

2. Day 2: Down into the Rift Valley to Lake Naivasha

   Nairobi to the Rift Valley escarpment, then Lake Naivasha and Crescent Island

   • Drive about 2.5 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Lake Naivasha
   Day 2 details

   After breakfast we leave Nairobi on the A104, climbing past the tea gardens and smallholder farms around Limuru until the road reaches the edge of the Rift Valley escarpment. We stop at a viewpoint where the valley floor opens out far below, with the cone of Mount Longonot, a dormant volcano, standing over the plain. Then it is down the escarpment to Lake Naivasha, about two and a half hours in all, in time for lunch at our lodge on the shore. Naivasha is one of the few freshwater lakes in the Kenyan Rift, at about 1,880 m, and its margins are busy with hippos, pelicans, cormorants and African fish eagles. In the late afternoon, when the heat has gone out of the day, a local boatman takes us out on the lake to watch the hippos at a safe distance, then lands us on Crescent Island, a private sanctuary with no large predators, where you walk among giraffes, zebras, wildebeest and waterbuck with a local guide. Dinner is at the lodge.

   Included

   • Rift Valley viewpoint on the escarpment
   • Lunch and dinner at the lodge
   • Boat trip on Lake Naivasha
   • Guided walk on Crescent Island

   Optional experiences

   • Cycling through the gorge in Hell's Gate National Park, in place of the Crescent Island walk (price confirmed at booking)

   Easier option: Stay on the boat and skip the Crescent Island walk.

   More active option: Cycle and walk through Hell's Gate National Park, one of the few Kenyan parks where you may ride a bike among the animals, instead of the Crescent Island walk.

   Free time: Early afternoon free at the lodge

   Activity: The Crescent Island walk is about 1.5 to 2 hours on flat, open grass.

   

3. Day 3: Rhinos at Lake Nakuru

   Lake Naivasha to Lake Nakuru National Park and back

   • Drive about 3 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Lake Naivasha
   Day 3 details

   We leave the lodge at about 6:30 am with a packed breakfast and drive about an hour and a half north through Gilgil to Lake Nakuru National Park, so we are inside soon after the gates open, when animals are active and the air is still cool. The park was fenced in the 1980s as a sanctuary for rhinos, and it is one of the most reliable places in Kenya to see both black and white rhinos. Rothschild's giraffes, buffalo, waterbuck and big troops of olive baboons are common; lions and leopards are possible but never promised. Flamingos are a different story: since the lake rose sharply in the 2010s their numbers have swung from very few to many, so we do not count on them. We drive up to Baboon Cliff for the view over the whole lake, then sit down to lunch at a lodge inside the park. We are back at Naivasha by mid-afternoon, with the rest of the day free by the water.

   Included

   • Morning game drive in Lake Nakuru National Park, park fee included
   • Baboon Cliff viewpoint
   • Sit-down lunch inside the park
   • Dinner at the lodge

   Free time: Late afternoon free at the lodge

   Activity: About 3 hours of road driving in all, plus about 4 hours of game driving inside the park.

   

4. Day 4: Across Maasai country to the Mara

   Lake Naivasha to Mai Mahiu and Narok, then a conservancy on the edge of the Masai Mara

   • Drive about 4.5 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Masai Mara
   Day 4 details

   Today is the longest drive of the trip, about 230 km and four and a half to five hours on the road, and we say so plainly. We drive it because our 4x4s and driver-guides need to be in the Mara for the full reserve day on day 6, and starting from Naivasha rather than Nairobi already shortens it. We break it up. We leave at about 8 am, cross the valley floor past Mai Mahiu and climb west to Narok, the market town of Maasai country, where we stop for coffee and a stretch after about two and a half hours. Beyond Narok the land opens into grazing country, with herders moving cattle and goats between bomas, and the last stretch to camp is on gravel and dirt tracks. We reach our tented camp in a conservancy bordering the Masai Mara National Reserve in time for a late lunch. After a rest, the camp's Maasai guides take us out in open vehicles for the first drive, until the light goes.

   Included

   • Coffee stop in Narok
   • Lunch and dinner at camp
   • Late-afternoon game drive in the conservancy in an open vehicle with Maasai guides
   • Conservancy fees

   Activity: About 4.5 to 5 hours of driving, broken at Narok; the final stretch is bumpy.

   

5. Day 5: A conservancy day: dawn, beadwork and dusk

   A full day in the Mara conservancy

   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Masai Mara
   Day 5 details

   Coffee comes before dawn, and we are out on the first drive as the light comes up, when lions and hyenas are often still on the move. Conservancies are private land leased from Maasai families and set aside for wildlife, with a cap on vehicles at each sighting and rules that let guides leave the track to follow an animal, which the main reserve does not allow. After a late breakfast at camp, we drive a short way to meet a Maasai women's beadwork group linked to the conservancy, confirmed with your dates. The women show how the collars, bracelets and belts are made and what the colours mean, and you can try a simple piece yourself; anything you buy is paid to the women directly. The middle of the day is free at camp. In the late afternoon you choose: a bush walk of about two hours with Maasai guides, women guides where the camp has them, or the afternoon drive, which ends on a rise with a sundowner.

   Included

   • Dawn game drive in the conservancy
   • Morning with a Maasai women's beadwork group (confirmed with your dates)
   • Guided bush walk with Maasai guides, or the late-afternoon drive with a sundowner
   • All meals at camp

   Optional experiences

   • Night drive with a spotlight, where the conservancy allows it (price confirmed at booking)
   • Hot-air balloon flight at sunrise with a bush breakfast (price confirmed at booking)

   Easier option: Skip the dawn drive, sleep in and join the group for the beadwork morning and the afternoon drive.

   More active option: Take the bush walk and the sundowner drive, and add the night drive where it runs.

   Free time: Middle of the day free at camp

   Activity: The bush walk is about 2 hours at a slow pace on uneven ground; the beadwork visit is about 2 hours, mostly seated.

   

6. Day 6: A full day in the Masai Mara National Reserve

   From the conservancy into the Masai Mara National Reserve and out to the Mara River

   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Masai Mara
   Day 6 details

   Today we switch to our own 4x4s with pop-up roofs and drive into the Masai Mara National Reserve for the whole day, with the reserve fee included. We leave camp at about 6:30 am with breakfast packed, enter at the nearest gate and work west across open grassland towards the Mara River, stopping wherever something is worth waiting for. Every guest has a window, and the roof lifts so you can stand to watch and photograph. The river holds hippos and large Nile crocodiles all year. From about July to October in most years the great herds of wildebeest and zebra arrive from Tanzania's Serengeti, and some groups cross the river; when and where they cross changes daily and from year to year, so a crossing is a chance, not a promise. Outside those months the reserve still has its resident lions, elephants, buffalo, cheetahs and plains game. Lunch is a picnic in the shade of a tree, and we are back at camp around sunset.

   Included

   • Full-day game drive in the Masai Mara National Reserve, reserve fee included
   • The Mara River and its hippo pools
   • Picnic lunch in the reserve
   • Dinner at camp

   Easier option: Return to camp at lunchtime in one vehicle, when enough guests prefer a half day.

   Activity: A long day seated in the vehicle, about 10 to 11 hours with stops.

   

7. Day 7: Fly back to Nairobi and the Giraffe Centre

   Mara airstrip to Wilson Airport by light aircraft, then Langata in Nairobi

   • Drive about 1 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Nairobi
   Day 7 details

   One last short drive at first light, then breakfast and a transfer to the nearest airstrip for a scheduled light-aircraft flight back to Wilson Airport in Nairobi, about an hour in the air, sometimes with a stop at another Mara airstrip. Flying saves the five to six hour drive on the road we came in on and gives you a last look at the plains from above. The planes take a soft bag of about 15 kg per person, so your main bag rides back in our vehicle, which makes the road trip today and reaches the hotel by the evening. After lunch in Karen we visit the Giraffe Centre in Langata, where the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife breeds Rothschild's giraffes, a rare subspecies, and you can feed them from a raised platform at head height. The rest of the afternoon is free: the Karen Blixen Museum is a few minutes away, or your guide takes those who want to a Karen bead workshop that employs local women. In the evening we gather for a farewell dinner.

   Included

   • Short game drive at first light
   • Scheduled light-aircraft flight from the Masai Mara to Wilson Airport, Nairobi
   • Lunch in Karen
   • Giraffe Centre, Langata
   • Farewell dinner

   Optional experiences

   • Karen Blixen Museum
   • A bead and ceramics workshop in Karen that employs local women (confirmed with your dates)

   Free time: Late afternoon free

   Activity: Flight times are set by the airline and confirmed with your final itinerary.

   

8. Day 8: The elephant nursery and home

   Nairobi to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust nursery, then Jomo Kenyatta International Airport

   • Drive about 1.5 h
   • Breakfast
   Day 8 details

   A slow breakfast, then late in the morning we visit the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust's elephant nursery inside Nairobi National Park for its one-hour public visit (currently 11 am to noon), when the keepers bring the orphaned baby elephants out for their milk feed and a mud bath and tell the story of how each one was rescued. Visits must be booked ahead, and we do that for you. Afterwards there is time for lunch and a last look at the city, and a day room at the hotel to shower and repack before an evening flight. Your guide sees you to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, about 30 to 45 minutes away depending on traffic, and checks your flight before saying goodbye. To see the elephants, book a flight leaving after about 5 pm. If your flight is earlier, we take you straight to the airport after breakfast instead, and the visit is skipped.

   Included

   • Sheldrick Wildlife Trust elephant nursery public visit
   • Day room at the hotel
   • Drop-off at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (NBO)

   Easier option: For a flight before about 5 pm, go straight to the airport from the hotel.

   Free time: Early afternoon free

   Activity: Book a flight leaving after about 5 pm to see the elephant nursery.

   

Wildlife and weather: June to October is the long dry season: cool mornings, short grass and animals gathered near water, and in most years the wildebeest and zebra herds are in the Mara from about July to October. January to March is warm and dry, with resident game, fewer vehicles and young animals. April and May bring the long rains, so we do not run then. Lake Nakuru's flamingo numbers swing widely from year to year since the lake rose.

• Nairobi1 night
• Lake Naivasha2 nights
• Masai Mara3 nights
• Nairobi1 night