Nairobi to Zanzibar: the Masai Mara, the Serengeti and the coast by land

1. Day 1: Arrive in Nairobi

   Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to your hotel in Nairobi

   • Drive about 45 min
   • Dinner
   • Stay in Nairobi
   Day 1 details

   Land at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (NBO), about 18 km south-east of central Nairobi. Our driver meets you in arrivals with your name on a board and takes you straight to the hotel, never to a shuttle stop or bus station; allow 45 minutes or more in rush-hour traffic. Kenya has no visa on arrival, so have your eTA approved before you fly. If you are in by lunchtime, the afternoon is free: the Nairobi National Museum or the Karen Blixen Museum are an easy taxi ride, and the hotel desk can arrange one. In the early evening your See Sight Tours guide meets the group for a briefing on the twelve days: why we start early in the parks, how the window seats rotate, the 15 kg soft-bag limit on the small planes, and the papers to keep in your day bag for the Namanga border on day 4. Then we sit down to a welcome dinner together. Repack into a soft bag tonight; tomorrow we fly.

   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 over the Rift Valley 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

   The Mara is about 270 km and five to six hours from Nairobi by road, more than our four-hour limit, so we fly in. After breakfast it is half an hour across town to Wilson Airport, Nairobi's small-plane airport, for a scheduled flight of 45 minutes to an hour, sometimes with a stop at another airstrip. Below you the land drops away into the Great Rift Valley, then rises to the rolling grass of the Mara. Our Kenyan driver-guides wait at the airstrip with the 4x4s: at most six guests in each, every seat a window, and a pop-up roof to stand under for photos. We game drive to camp, a permanent tented camp in or close to the reserve with proper beds and a private bathroom, for two nights. Lunch is at camp, then a rest through the heat. At about four we head out again as the light softens, looking for lions, elephants, topi and giraffe, and are back at dusk for dinner.

   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
   • Masai Mara National Reserve fees

   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 and a Maasai village

   Dawn-to-afternoon game drive in the Masai Mara National Reserve, then a Maasai village near camp

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

   We roll out at about 6:30 am with coffee in a flask and breakfast packed, because the first hours are when the cats are moving and the light is low and gold. The Masai Mara is the Kenyan end of the Serengeti ecosystem, about 1,500 square kilometres of grassland cut by the Mara and Talek rivers. From about July the wildebeest and zebra herds are usually here, and a crossing of the Mara River is possible, though nobody can say when or where. The driver-guides share sightings by radio, and we wait at a crossing point only as long as the group wants. We picnic under an acacia and are back at camp by about two for a shower and a rest. At about half past four we drive a few minutes to a Maasai village, an enkang of homes inside a thorn fence, where your hosts show you their houses, explain cattle and family life and talk about school and land. The visit fee goes to the community; beadwork is for sale without pressure.

   Included

   • Dawn-to-afternoon game drive in the Masai Mara National Reserve
   • Picnic lunch in the reserve
   • Maasai village visit with a local host
   • Sundowner at camp

   Optional experiences

   • Hot-air balloon flight at dawn with a bush breakfast. Booked in advance; you rejoin the group after breakfast.

   Easier option: Return to camp at midday with one vehicle, when the group agrees, and skip the village.

   More active option: Swap the village visit for a guided walk of about an hour and a half with a Maasai guide and an armed ranger on community land outside the reserve.

   Free time: Mid-afternoon free at camp

   Activity: A long morning in the vehicle on bumpy tracks. Bring a warm layer for the dawn start.

   

4. Day 4: Back to Nairobi and over the Namanga border to Arusha

   Masai Mara airstrip to Wilson Airport, then by road south through Kajiado and the Namanga border to Arusha

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

   This is the land crossing that gives the trip its shape, and the one day over our four-hour driving limit, so here is why. The Mara and the Serengeti touch, but the crossing between them is closed to visitors; the other road border, Isebania, is about ten hours to the Serengeti. So we game drive to the airstrip, take the earliest flight we can book back to Wilson Airport, usually mid-morning, and sit down to lunch in Nairobi. Then it is about 165 km south through Athi River and Kajiado to Namanga, with a coffee stop on the way, roughly two and a half hours. Namanga is a one-stop border post: Kenyan exit and Tanzanian entry happen in one building, usually in about an hour, and your guide walks you through it with passport, e-visa and yellow fever certificate in hand. Our Tanzanian driver-guides meet us on the far side. The last 110 km, about two hours, run past Mount Meru into Arusha on the main tarmac highway, the only road we drive in Tanzania after dark. Expect to arrive in the early evening, around 7 pm and often after dark. Dinner at the hotel, then bed.

   Included

   • Game drive to the airstrip
   • Flight from the Masai Mara to Wilson Airport, Nairobi
   • Road transfer from Nairobi to Arusha by the Namanga border
   • Help through Kenyan exit and Tanzanian entry at Namanga

   Free time: Late evening free in Arusha

   Activity: The long day: about 4.5 hours of road plus about an hour at the border, after a morning flight, broken by lunch in Nairobi and a coffee stop, arriving in Arusha around 7 pm, often after dark, on the main highway. Keep your passport, Tanzanian e-visa and yellow fever certificate in your day bag. Flight times are set when we book your dates.

   

5. Day 5: Tarangire, elephants on the river

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

   • Drive about 2 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Tarangire
   Day 5 details

   A slow start after yesterday: breakfast at the hotel and away at about 8:30. It is roughly two hours west on good tarmac through Maasai grazing land to Makuyuni, then south to the gate of Tarangire National Park. In the dry months from June to October the Tarangire River is the only water for miles, so elephants come to it in large family herds, alongside zebra, wildebeest, giraffe and buffalo. The park is also known for its baobabs, swollen grey trunks that can be many centuries old, and for its birds. We game drive to our camp, inside the park or on its boundary, for lunch and a rest through the heat of the day. At about four we head out along the river, where the sandy banks are cut into low cliffs and the herds come down to drink in the late light. Lions and leopards live here too, though the long grass hides them well. Back at dusk for dinner. One night here is deliberate: it breaks the drive to the crater into two short days.

   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

6. Day 6: 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 4 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Ngorongoro
   Day 6 details

   Out at about 6:30 am, when elephants are walking to the river and the low sun lights up the baobabs. Back at camp for a late breakfast and the bags, then we leave the park and drive north-west for about two hours to Mto wa Mbu, a market town at the foot of the Rift Valley wall, where banana groves and rice paddies are fed by springs from the escarpment. Lunch is local food in town. Then we climb the escarpment above Lake Manyara and cross the red-soil farmland around Karatu, where coffee and wheat grow. At the Lodoare gate we enter the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979, and climb through cloud forest to the crater rim at about 2,300 metres, arriving in the late afternoon after about 190 km. We sleep one night on the rim so we can be at the descent gate when it opens. The air is cool up here, so have a warm layer ready for the view down into the crater as the sun goes.

   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: 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.

   

7. Day 7: 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 7 details

   This is the second-longest day: the crater from dawn, then about four hours of road, broken by Olduvai and lunch. We leave the lodge in the dark with breakfast packed and reach the descent road as the gate opens, around 6 am, so we drop to the floor through morning mist among the first vehicles. Ngorongoro is a collapsed volcano about 600 metres deep, its floor some 260 square kilometres of grass, swamp, forest and the soda lake Magadi. Lions, hyenas, buffalo, zebra and wildebeest live here all year, and it is the best chance on the trip of a black rhino, though they are few and often far off. We eat breakfast at a picnic site on the floor and climb out at about ten, as the vehicles build up. 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 Naabi Hill gate of the Serengeti and a game drive across the short-grass plains to camp near Seronera, our base 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: 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.

   

8. Day 8: A full day in the Serengeti

   Dawn and full-day game drives in the Serengeti, planned around the herds

   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Serengeti
   Day 8 details

   Out 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 about 14,750 square kilometres and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1981. Around Seronera the river holds water and shade through the dry season, so the area keeps resident game: lions on the granite outcrops called kopjes, leopards draped in sausage trees, cheetahs on the open grass. From July to October most of the wildebeest and zebra are in the far north and across the border in the Mara, so the driver-guides read the radio and the day and decide whether to stay central for the predators or head north towards stragglers. In June the herds can still be moving through the western and central areas. We picnic in the bush, stop at a hippo pool, and take time at good sightings instead of racing between them. A sundowner on the way back closes 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 on rough tracks.

   

9. Day 9: Serengeti sunrise, then fly to Zanzibar

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

   • Drive about 18 min
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Stone Town
   Day 9 details

   Where the overland trucks spend two or three days driving to Dar es Salaam and taking the ferry, we fly. One last drive at first light, then breakfast and the bags into the 4x4s, and a game drive to the Seronera airstrip for a late-morning scheduled light-aircraft flight to Zanzibar. It usually stops at Arusha or Lake Manyara on the way and takes 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 and then the green coast and the pale blue 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, where stalls grill seafood at sunset.

   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. Small-plane schedules can change. If the Zanzibar flight is moved or rerouted, we rearrange the day around it and keep the Stone Town night; the flight stop and times are confirmed with your dates.

10. Day 10: 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 10 details

    We start walking at 8:30, before the heat and the day-trip groups. A local guide leads us through Stone Town's narrow lanes: the carved wooden doors with brass studs, the Old Fort on the seafront, the crowded 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 stay with you. About two and a half hours on foot, with a coffee stop. Then we drive out to a spice farm in the green interior, where the farmer cuts open a nutmeg, peels cinnamon bark and shows how cloves, vanilla and pepper grow, and lunch is cooked with what we have just seen. In the afternoon it is about an hour north to Nungwi or Kendwa, where the tide moves far less than on the east coast and the sea is swimmable most of the day. Check in to the beach hotel for two nights; 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 seafront cafe.

    Free time: Evening free on the beach. The spice farm is optional: skip it and go straight to the north coast after the walk for a free afternoon.

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

    

11. Day 11: A free day on Zanzibar's north coast

    Free day at Nungwi or Kendwa

    • Breakfast and dinner
    • Stay in Nungwi
    Day 11 details

    No alarm. After ten days of dawn starts and long drives, this day is yours and nothing is planned until the farewell dinner. Swim, read in the shade, or walk the beach towards Nungwi village, where dhow builders still shape wooden boats by hand on the sand. If you want more, your guide can book a boat out to the reef around Mnemba Island to snorkel among 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, never sold in the vehicle. The north coast faces west, so the sun goes down over the sea, and in the evening the group gathers on the beach for a farewell dinner of seafood and Swahili dishes, swapping stories from the Mara, the border, the crater and 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

    

12. Day 12: Leave from Zanzibar

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

    • Drive about 1.5 h
    • Breakfast
    Day 12 details

    A slow morning: breakfast facing the sea 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 departure. Your guide sees the group off and checks each flight before saying goodbye, so nobody is left at a roadside or a bus stand. Zanzibar has direct flights to the Gulf, to some European cities on certain days, and to Nairobi, Dar es Salaam and Addis Ababa, which connect onward to Canada and the United States; plan on at least one change. Book a flight 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 would like to stay on, we can book extra beach nights at the same hotel.

    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: We run only from June to October, the dry season. Days are warm and sunny, nights and dawns cool, and cold on the Ngorongoro rim. Grass is short and animals gather near water, which makes them easier to find. From about July the wildebeest and zebra herds are usually in the Masai Mara and the northern Serengeti, and Mara River crossings are possible, though never on a schedule. Tarangire is at its best now, with elephants on the river. Zanzibar is dry and less humid than at other times of year.

• Nairobi1 night
• Masai Mara2 nights
• Arusha1 night
• Tarangire1 night
• Ngorongoro1 night
• Serengeti2 nights
• Stone Town1 night
• Nungwi2 nights