Kenya, Tanzania and Zanzibar: the Masai Mara, the Serengeti and the beach

1. Day 1: Arrive in Nairobi

   Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to your hotel in Nairobi

   • Drive about 45 min
   • Welcome dinner
   • Stay in Nairobi
   Day 1 details

   Fly into Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (NBO), about 18 km south-east of the city centre. A driver meets you in the arrivals hall and takes you to your hotel; allow 45 minutes or more, because Nairobi traffic is heavy at rush hour. Have your Kenyan eTA approved before you fly, as there is no visa on arrival. If you land early, the afternoon is yours: the Nairobi National Museum and the Karen Blixen Museum are both an easy taxi ride, and the hotel can book one for you. In the early evening your See Sight Tours guide meets the group for a briefing on the thirteen days ahead: why we start early in the parks, how the window seats rotate, the 15 kg soft-bag limit on the small planes, and which documents to keep in your day bag for the flight into Tanzania. Then we sit down together to a welcome dinner. Repack tonight into a soft bag, because tomorrow we fly to the Mara.

   Included

   • Pick-up at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (NBO)
   • Welcome briefing with your guide
   • Welcome dinner

   Free time: Free until the evening briefing

   Activity: Plan to land by about 3 pm to make the briefing. If your flight lands late, your guide catches you up at breakfast.

2. Day 2: Fly to the Masai Mara

   Wilson Airport in Nairobi to an airstrip in the Masai Mara, then a game drive to camp

   • Drive about 30 min
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Masai Mara
   Day 2 details

   By road the Mara is about 270 km and five to six hours from Nairobi, longer than our four-hour limit, so we fly. After breakfast it is about half an hour across town to Wilson Airport, Nairobi's light-aircraft airport, for a scheduled flight of 45 minutes to an hour, sometimes with a stop at another airstrip, over the Great Rift Valley. At the airstrip our Kenyan driver-guides meet us with the 4x4s: at most six guests in each, every seat a window, with a pop-up roof for standing and photos. We game drive to camp, a tented camp in or close to the reserve, for three nights. Lunch is at camp, then a rest through the heat of the day. At about four we head out again as the light softens, over open grassland with lone acacias, looking for lions, elephants, topi and giraffe, and are back by dusk for dinner and the sounds of the night outside the tent.

   Included

   • Flight from Wilson Airport, Nairobi, to the Masai Mara
   • Game drive from the airstrip to camp
   • Late-afternoon game drive in the Masai Mara National Reserve

   Easier option: Skip the late-afternoon drive and settle in at camp.

   Free time: Early afternoon free at camp

   Activity: Light-aircraft baggage limit of about 15 kg per person in a soft bag.

3. Day 3: A full day in the Mara

   Full-day game drive in the Masai Mara National Reserve, with a picnic lunch

   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Masai Mara
   Day 3 details

   We leave at about 6:30 am with coffee in a flask and breakfast packed, because the first hours are when the cats are most active and the light is soft. The Masai Mara is the northern end of the same ecosystem as the Serengeti, about 1,500 square kilometres of grassland cut by the Mara and Talek rivers. From about July to October the wildebeest and zebra herds are usually here, and crossings of the Mara River are possible, though no one can say when or where the herds will cross. Your driver-guides share sightings by radio, and we wait at a crossing point only as long as the group wants. In the other months the Mara keeps its resident lions, elephants, buffalo, hippos, giraffes and cheetahs all year. We picnic in the shade of a tree inside the reserve and return to camp in the late afternoon, with time for a shower before dinner. If you have booked the balloon, you lift off at dawn and join us after a bush breakfast.

   Included

   • Full-day game drive in the Masai Mara National Reserve
   • Picnic lunch in the reserve

   Optional experiences

   • Hot-air balloon flight at dawn with a bush breakfast. Booked in advance.

   Easier option: Return to camp at lunchtime with one vehicle, when the group agrees.

   Activity: A long day sitting in the vehicle, often on bumpy tracks. Bring a warm layer for the dawn start.

   

4. Day 4: Mara at dawn, a Maasai village in the afternoon

   Dawn game drive, then a visit to a Maasai village near the reserve

   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Masai Mara
   Day 4 details

   One more early drive at first light, to a different corner of the reserve from yesterday, chosen by your driver-guides from what was seen the day before. We have coffee before we go and come back to camp at about ten for a late breakfast, then the middle of the day is free: rest in your tent, read on the deck, or watch the plains from camp. In the middle of the afternoon we drive a short way out of the reserve to a Maasai village, an enkang of homes inside a thorn fence where families keep their cattle at night. Your hosts show you their houses, explain how cattle shape Maasai life, and talk about school, land and change. The visit fee goes to the community, and the beadwork is for sale without any pressure to buy. We are back for a sundowner looking out over the grassland, and an early night before tomorrow's flights into Tanzania.

   Included

   • Dawn game drive in the Masai Mara National Reserve
   • Maasai village visit with a local host
   • Sundowner at camp

   Easier option: Skip the village visit and stay at camp all afternoon.

   More active option: Swap the dawn drive for a guided walk of about two hours with a Maasai guide and an armed ranger on community land outside the reserve, reading tracks, plants and birds.

   Free time: Middle of the day free at camp

5. Day 5: Fly out of the Mara to Kilimanjaro and Arusha

   Masai Mara airstrip to Wilson Airport, across Nairobi to Jomo Kenyatta, flight to Kilimanjaro, then Arusha

   • Drive about 1.5 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Arusha
   Day 5 details

   The Mara and the Serengeti touch, but the crossing between them is closed to visitors. The road alternative is the Isebania border west of the reserve, about ten hours to the central Serengeti, so we fly instead. A short game drive takes us to the airstrip for a mid-morning flight back to Wilson Airport. A van takes us across Nairobi, about half an hour, to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, where we sit down to lunch before the flight of about an hour to Kilimanjaro International Airport (JRO). On a clear afternoon Kilimanjaro shows from the plane. Your guide walks you through Tanzanian entry: passport, e-visa and yellow fever card in hand. Our Tanzanian driver-guides meet us with the 4x4s, and it is about an hour west to Arusha, at the foot of Mount Meru, 4,566 metres. Dinner is at the hotel, and the evening is free to rest after a long day of travel.

   Included

   • Flight from the Masai Mara to Wilson Airport, Nairobi
   • Transfer from Wilson to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport
   • Flight from Nairobi to Kilimanjaro International Airport (JRO)
   • Help through Tanzanian entry formalities
   • Drive from JRO to Arusha

   Free time: Evening free in Arusha

   Activity: A travel day of about 7 to 8 hours door to door, in three short legs with a sit-down lunch. Keep your passport, Tanzanian e-visa and yellow fever certificate in your day bag. Flight times are set when we book your dates.

   

6. Day 6: Tarangire, the park of elephants and baobabs

   Arusha to Tarangire National Park by Makuyuni, then an afternoon game drive

   • Drive about 2 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Tarangire
   Day 6 details

   A slower morning after yesterday's flights: breakfast at the hotel and away at about 8:30. It is about two hours west on a good tarmac road through Maasai grazing land to Makuyuni, then south to the gate of Tarangire National Park. Tarangire is known for its baobab trees, some of them many centuries old, and for its elephants, which gather along the Tarangire River in the dry months from about June to October, when the river is the only water for miles. We game drive to our camp for lunch and a rest through the heat. At about four we head out again along the river, where zebra, wildebeest, giraffe and buffalo come down to drink, and the sandy banks are cut into small cliffs. Lions and leopards are here too, though harder to see in the long grass. Back by dusk for dinner, with the river below camp.

   Included

   • Game drive from the gate to camp
   • Late-afternoon game drive along the Tarangire River
   • Tarangire National Park fees

   Easier option: Skip the late-afternoon drive and rest at camp.

   Free time: Early afternoon free at camp

   

7. Day 7: Tarangire at dawn, up to the Ngorongoro rim

   Dawn game drive in Tarangire, then via Mto wa Mbu and Karatu to the Ngorongoro Crater rim

   • Drive about 3 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Ngorongoro
   Day 7 details

   We leave camp at about 6:30 am for a dawn drive, when the elephants are moving to the river and the light on the baobabs is warm and low. Back to camp for a late breakfast and to load the bags, then we leave the park and drive north and west to Mto wa Mbu, a market town at the foot of the Rift Valley wall, about an hour and a half away. We stop for lunch with local dishes, then climb the escarpment past Lake Manyara and through the farmland around Karatu, where coffee and wheat grow on the red soil. At the Lodoare gate we enter the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979, and climb through forest to the crater rim at about 2,300 metres, arriving in the middle of the afternoon. The rest of the day is free. The air is cool, so have a warm layer ready for the view into the crater at sunset.

   Included

   • Dawn game drive in Tarangire National Park
   • Lunch in Mto wa Mbu
   • Ngorongoro Conservation Area fees

   Easier option: Sleep in and skip the dawn drive; we collect you for a late breakfast.

   More active option: Walk the Mto wa Mbu market and the banana and rice fields with a local guide for an hour before lunch.

   Free time: Late afternoon and evening free on the crater rim

   Activity: About 3 hours of road, broken by lunch. The rim sits at about 2,300 m and is cold at night.

8. Day 8: Ngorongoro Crater at gate opening, on to the Serengeti

   Ngorongoro Crater floor, then Olduvai Gorge and Naabi Hill to Seronera in the central Serengeti

   • Drive about 4 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Serengeti
   Day 8 details

   We leave the lodge in the dark with a packed breakfast and reach the descent road as the gate opens, around 6 am, so we drop to the crater floor in the morning mist among the first vehicles. Ngorongoro is a collapsed volcano about 600 metres deep, with some 260 square kilometres of grassland, swamp, forest and the soda lake Magadi on its floor. Lions, hyenas, buffalo, zebra and wildebeest live here all year, and it is your best chance of a black rhino, though they are few and often far off. Breakfast is at a picnic site on the floor; we climb out at about ten, as the crowds build. Then west to Olduvai Gorge, where a small museum tells how Mary Leakey found a hominin skull about 1.75 million years old in 1959. Picnic lunch there, then on to the Serengeti's Naabi Hill gate and a game drive across the plains to camp near Seronera for two nights.

   Included

   • Ngorongoro Crater game drive from gate opening, with the crater fee
   • Picnic breakfast on the crater floor
   • Olduvai Gorge museum
   • Game drive from Naabi Hill to camp
   • Serengeti National Park fees

   Activity: The longest road day: about 4 hours from the rim to Seronera on rough roads, broken by Olduvai and lunch, with the last part a game drive. Cold at dawn on the rim: bring a warm layer and a hat.

   

9. Day 9: A full day in the Serengeti

   Dawn and full-day game drives in the Serengeti, planned by season

   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Serengeti
   Day 9 details

   We leave camp before sunrise, which near the equator comes at about half past six all year, with coffee in a flask and breakfast packed. The Serengeti covers some 14,750 square kilometres and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1981. Around Seronera the river keeps water and shade through the dry months, so the area holds resident game all year: lions on the granite outcrops called kopjes, leopards in the sausage trees, cheetahs on the open grass. On departures from January to March we head south towards the calving plains near Ndutu, about two hours away; from July to October most herds are in the far north and the Mara, so we stay central and look for the predators. We picnic in the bush, stop at a hippo pool, and give the driver-guides time to wait at a good sighting. A sundowner on the drive back ends the last full day of the safari.

   Included

   • Dawn game drive with packed breakfast
   • Full-day game drive with picnic lunch
   • Hippo pool stop
   • Sundowner on the evening drive

   Optional experiences

   • Hot-air balloon flight at dawn with a bush breakfast. Approximate; booked in advance.

   Easier option: Return to camp at midday with one vehicle, when the group agrees, and rest through the afternoon.

   Free time: Midday rest at camp for those who return early

   Activity: A long day in the vehicle; the January to March run to the southern plains adds about two hours each way on rough tracks.

   

10. Day 10: Serengeti sunrise, then fly to Zanzibar

    Dawn game drive in the Serengeti, flight from Seronera to Zanzibar, then Stone Town

    • Drive about 18 min
    • Breakfast and lunch
    • Stay in Stone Town
    Day 10 details

    One last drive at first light, then breakfast at camp and the bags into the 4x4s. We game drive to the Seronera airstrip for a late-morning scheduled light-aircraft flight to Zanzibar, usually with a stop at Arusha or Lake Manyara, about three hours in all, with a packed lunch in hand. Say goodbye to the Tanzanian driver-guides at the airstrip; your See Sight Tours guide flies on with you. The plains give way to the Rift Valley, then the green coast and the turquoise water of the Zanzibar Channel. Our van meets us at Zanzibar's airport, a short drive from Stone Town, the old trading town on the island's west coast and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000. We check into a hotel inside the old town in the middle of the afternoon. The evening is free: walk to the Forodhani Gardens on the seafront, where food stalls grill seafood as the sun sets.

    Included

    • Dawn game drive in the Serengeti
    • Flight from Seronera to Zanzibar
    • Transfer from Zanzibar airport to Stone Town

    Easier option: Skip the dawn drive and have breakfast at camp before the airstrip.

    Free time: Evening free in Stone Town

    Activity: A travel day of about 6 hours from camp to Stone Town. Baggage limit about 15 kg in a soft bag. Dinner tonight is your own, at the Forodhani stalls or a rooftop restaurant.

11. Day 11: Stone Town on foot, a spice farm and the north coast

    Stone Town walk, a spice farm in the island's interior, then north to Nungwi or Kendwa

    • Drive about 1.5 h
    • Breakfast and lunch
    • Stay in Nungwi
    Day 11 details

    We start walking at 8:30, before the heat and the day groups. A local guide leads us through the narrow lanes of Stone Town: the carved wooden doors with brass studs, the Old Fort on the seafront, the busy Darajani market, and the Anglican cathedral built on the site of the last open slave market in East Africa, with a memorial and an underground chamber that is hard to forget. About two and a half hours on foot, with a stop for coffee. Then we drive out of town to a spice farm in the green interior, where the farmer cuts open nutmeg, crushes cinnamon bark and shows how cloves, vanilla and pepper grow, and we eat lunch cooked with what we have just seen. In the afternoon it is about an hour north to the beaches at Nungwi or Kendwa, where the tide moves less than on the east coast and the sea is good for swimming most of the day. The evening is yours on the sand.

    Included

    • Guided Stone Town walk with a local guide
    • Spice farm visit with lunch
    • Transfer to the north coast

    Easier option: Take the short version of the Stone Town walk, about an hour, and wait at a cafe on the seafront.

    Free time: Evening free on the beach

    Activity: About two and a half hours on foot on uneven lanes in heat and humidity. Cover shoulders and knees in Stone Town and the villages.

12. Day 12: A free day on Zanzibar's north coast

    Free day at Nungwi or Kendwa

    • Breakfast and dinner
    • Stay in Nungwi
    Day 12 details

    No alarm. After nearly two weeks of early starts, this day is yours and nothing is scheduled until the farewell dinner. Swim, read under a palm, or walk the beach towards Nungwi village, where dhow builders still shape wooden boats on the sand by hand. If you want more, your guide can book a boat out to the reef around Mnemba Island to snorkel among the reef fish and, often, dolphins, or a sunset sail in a traditional dhow along the coast. Both are optional, priced up front and booked only if you ask. The north coast faces west, so the sun sets over the sea, and in the evening we gather on the beach for a farewell dinner together, with seafood and Swahili dishes, to share stories from the Mara to the reef. Bring reef-safe sunscreen and keep swimwear to the beach, out of respect for the villages along the shore.

    Included

    • Farewell dinner on the beach

    Optional experiences

    • Snorkelling trip to the reef at Mnemba Island. Booked the day before.
    • Sunset dhow sail along the north coast. Booked the day before.

    More active option: Snorkel the Mnemba reef in the morning.

    Free time: Free all day

13. Day 13: Leave from Zanzibar

    Nungwi or Kendwa to Abeid Amani Karume International Airport (ZNZ)

    • Drive about 1.5 h
    • Breakfast
    Day 13 details

    A slow morning: breakfast with the sea in front of you and a last swim if you like. We time your transfer to your flight. Abeid Amani Karume International Airport (ZNZ) is about 65 km south of the north coast, roughly an hour and a half by road through villages and plantations, so we usually leave three hours or more before an international flight. Your guide sees the group off and checks each flight before saying goodbye. Zanzibar has direct flights to the Gulf, to Europe on some days, and to Nairobi, Dar es Salaam and Addis Ababa, which connect onward to Canada and the United States; plan for at least one change. Book a flight leaving after about 1 pm if you want the morning on the beach; any time works, and the transfer is included whenever you go. If you want to stay on, we can book extra beach nights.

    Included

    • Drop-off at Abeid Amani Karume International Airport (ZNZ)

    Free time: Morning free on the beach

    Activity: Book a flight leaving after about 1 pm to keep the morning free.

Wildlife and weather: From about July to October the wildebeest and zebra herds are usually in the Masai Mara and the northern Serengeti, and Tarangire is at its best as elephants gather on the river. From January to March the herds calve on the southern Serengeti plains while the Mara keeps its resident game, and Zanzibar is hot and mostly dry. April and May bring the long rains and November the short rains, so we do not run then. Dawns are cool everywhere and cold on the Ngorongoro rim.

• Nairobi1 night
• Masai Mara3 nights
• Arusha1 night
• Tarangire1 night
• Ngorongoro1 night
• Serengeti2 nights
• Stone Town1 night
• Nungwi2 nights