Masai Mara National Park is located in Kenya along the border of Tanzania and is contiguous with the neighbouring Serengeti National Park. Masai Mara stretches across an area of 580 square miles (1,510 sq km).
Kenya: 11-Day Tour
🦁 Kenya is a Beautiful Country and One of the Best Places in the World for Wildlife Safaris
Right, settle down with a brew, because we’ve got a fair bit to get through here. When we were putting together our big grand tour of Africa, Kenya was always near the top of the list, and I’ll tell you why. The landscapes there go from wide open savannahs, to proper arid desert, to enormous lakes, to mountain forests so lush you’d think you’d wandered into the wrong continent altogether. It’s one of those countries that seems to have packed about six different ecosystems into one set of borders, and the wildlife that comes with all that variety is frankly extraordinary. We saw eight of the so-called “big nine” while we were there — the only one we missed out on was the mountain gorilla, which to be fair you’d need to pop over to Uganda or Rwanda for anyway.
Now I won’t pretend it’s all sweetness and light. Kenya is hugely popular with tourists, and that popularity has its drawbacks. In the well-known reserves you can easily find yourself in a queue of twenty-odd safari vehicles all jostling for position around one poor leopard or a pride of lions having a kip in the shade, which rather takes the magic out of it. Mind you, the country is vast, and if you know where to point the Land Cruiser, there’s still plenty of room to get away from the crowds and have the savannah more or less to yourselves.
We worked out an eleven-day itinerary that took in most of the big-ticket wildlife reserves. A lot of people tack on an extension to the Kenyan coast, or hop down to Zanzibar, once the safari portion is done. We decided against it this time — there’s only so much sand and sun a couple of Brits can take before we start craving a decent cup of tea and some drizzle.
For the whole trip we used a tour company called Dawn in Africa, and I can recommend them wholeheartedly to anyone thinking of doing something similar. They sorted us out with a car and driver for the full eleven days. We deliberately chose not to self-drive, mainly to give ourselves a chance to get used to what driving conditions are actually like out there before we were thrown in at the deep end. Looking back, that turned out to be a thoroughly sensible decision, and one I’d happily make again.
A bit of context on the country itself: Kenya has a population of roughly fifty-five million people, which when you consider its size is a fair old number. As you trundle through the towns and villages on your way between parks, you really do see how densely packed some of these places are, and how much poverty there still is. If you’ve never been to a developing nation before, the sights and sounds can hit you like a wall — the noise, the colour, the sheer busyness of it all — but that’s part of what makes travelling somewhere like this so rich and so different from a fortnight in the Costas.
A quick word on the country’s history while I’m at it, because it does help to understand the place you’re driving through. Kenya only became fully independent from Britain in December 1963, with Jomo Kenyatta — after whom Nairobi’s airport is named — becoming the country’s first president the following year. Before that, it had been a British colony and protectorate since the turn of the twentieth century, and a fair bit of what you see on a safari like this, from old colonial-era lodges to the borders of the parks themselves, was shaped during that period. The Mau Mau uprising of the 1950s, a rebellion against British colonial rule centred largely in the very highlands we drove through on this trip, was a defining and often brutal chapter in that story, and it’s worth knowing a little about as you pass through.
🛫 Day One – Nairobi
We arrived into Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, which serves as Nairobi’s main gateway and is named, as I mentioned, after the country’s first president. It’s a proper hub of an airport, busy with flights heading all over East Africa, and after a long-haul flight you’re glad enough just to get through immigration and find your bags. We spent our first night in a guest house in the city itself, getting our bearings and adjusting to the time difference, before the real adventure began the following morning. Nairobi itself, for what it’s worth, sits at an altitude of around 1,795 metres, which means even though you’re not far off the equator, the nights can be surprisingly chilly — something that caught us both out, having packed for what we assumed would be relentless heat.
🐘 Day Two – Amboseli National Park
We set off from Nairobi at around half past eight in the morning, and by lunchtime we’d arrived at our hotel, the Amboseli Sopa Lodge, which gave us a bit of time to eat something and put our feet up before heading out on the sunset game drive. We were rather hoping for a good look at Mount Kilimanjaro, which looms just over the border in Tanzania and is, at 5,895 metres, the highest mountain on the entire African continent — but sadly the clouds had other ideas and the old mountain stayed firmly hidden behind a grey blanket all afternoon.
Unsurprisingly, we weren’t the only ones with the bright idea of a sunset game drive, and there was a fair old queue of drivers checking in their vehicles and their clients before heading out. Luckily a spot of people-watching, combined with a few giraffes wandering past to liven things up, helped the waiting pass quickly enough.
Amboseli National Park itself has a long and interesting history. It was originally part of a much larger reserve set up in 1906, and it became a national park in its own right in 1974. The name “Amboseli” comes from a Maasai word meaning “salty dust,” which gives you a fair idea of the dry, dusty terrain you’re driving through for much of the day, even though the park also has surprisingly lush swampland fed by underground rivers running off Kilimanjaro’s snowmelt. We stayed at Amboseli Sopa Lodge for both nights of our time in the park, and found it a comfortable enough base for our explorations.
🐘 Day Three – Amboseli National Park
We were up at dawn for an all-day game drive, and before setting off we grabbed a quick bit of breakfast — but the real treat came when we wandered out onto the lawn outside the restaurant. There, finally free of the cloud that had robbed us of the view the day before, was Mount Kilimanjaro in all its glory, lit up by the early morning sun. It really is a sight that stops you in your tracks, that great snow-capped dome rising out of the African plain, and it’s worth setting an early alarm just to catch it before the clouds roll back in, as they so often do by mid-morning.
The main attraction of Amboseli, without question, is its elephants. The park is thought to hold one of the largest and best-studied elephant populations anywhere in Africa, with researchers having tracked individual family groups here continuously since the 1970s — one of the longest-running studies of its kind anywhere in the world. We weren’t far into our drive through the park before we came across a whole herd of them, cows, bulls and calves together, going about their business with that wonderful unhurried dignity that elephants always seem to manage.
We spent a second night at the Amboseli Sopa Lodge, very glad of the chance to rest after a long day out in the heat and dust.
For a full review of Amboseli National Park see our Blog Post.
🚜 Day Four – Aberdare and the Ark
Today it was time to leave Amboseli behind and head north to Aberdare National Park. We stayed at The Ark, and what an experience that turned out to be. The Ark overlooks a floodlit waterhole and salt lick, which between them attract a steady procession of wildlife throughout the night, and the building itself, resembling and named after Noah’s Ark, is built across three decks with numerous balconies and lounges, giving four separate viewing areas from which to watch the comings and goings below.
It’s worth knowing a bit about the wider area, because Aberdare has rather a remarkable history attached to it. Just down the road from The Ark sits the famous Treetops Hotel, originally built in 1932 by an English hotelier named Sir Eric Sherbrooke Walker as little more than a modest two-room treehouse for game viewing. It grew over the years into a proper hotel, and it’s most famous for one extraordinary night in February 1952, when the then Princess Elizabeth stayed there with Prince Philip during a royal tour. It was while she was at Treetops that her father, King George VI, died, making her queen. She is said to have gone up to her room a princess and come down the next morning a queen — the first time in centuries a British monarch had succeeded to the throne while abroad. The original Treetops building was burned down by independence fighters during the Mau Mau uprising in 1954, but it was rebuilt nearby and remains a working hotel to this day, having reopened again in 2024 after a long closure during the pandemic. We didn’t stay there ourselves on this trip, but knowing that bit of royal history certainly adds a bit of colour to the drive past.
It’s roughly a four-hundred-kilometre drive between the two parks, so you’ll leave Amboseli just after breakfast and not arrive at the Aberdare Country Club until mid-afternoon, in good time for the transfer up to The Ark itself. The Ark is full-service, so dinner is laid on for you once you’ve settled in.
One word of warning — The Ark sits at an altitude of 2,330 metres, which means it can turn properly chilly up there, even in the middle of summer, despite the fact you’re more or less sat on the equator. We were glad of the extra jumper we’d packed almost as an afterthought.
🦓 Day Five – Samburu / Buffalo Springs
After breakfast you’re driven back from The Ark to the Aberdare Country Club to pick up the onward journey. The next stop on our itinerary was Buffalo Springs National Reserve, some two hundred kilometres north of Aberdare. Buffalo Springs sits right alongside the rather more famous Samburu National Reserve, and the two areas together hold a particularly special place in conservation history. It was here, in the late 1950s, that the game warden George Adamson and his wife Joy raised an orphaned lion cub named Elsa, having taken her in after George was forced to shoot her mother in self-defence during a routine patrol.
Joy’s account of the experience, published in 1960 as the book Born Free, went on to sell several million copies and was translated into well over twenty languages, before being turned into an Academy Award-winning film of the same name in 1966. Elsa herself became the first lioness ever known to be successfully raised by humans, released back into the wild, and to go on having cubs of her own while still maintaining contact with the Adamsons — a genuinely groundbreaking piece of conservation work at the time, long before “rewilding” was a word anyone used. Sadly Elsa died of a tick-borne illness in 1961, and both George and Joy were later murdered years apart, George by poachers in 1989 and Joy by a disgruntled former employee in 1980, but their work directly inspired the modern conservation movement across this whole region, including the founding of the Born Free Foundation by the actors who played them on screen.
It took us about three to four hours to reach Buffalo Springs, so we rolled in around lunchtime. After lunch there was time for an afternoon game drive. Much of Buffalo Springs is dry and arid, but there are pockets of forest created by the Ewaso Ngiro river running through it, and it’s a terrific place to spot lions, leopards, elephants and any number of antelope species. We also got a good look at the rather striking oryx, along with some of the rarer northern species you don’t see further south — reticulated giraffes with their crisp geometric markings, vulturine guinea fowls strutting about looking faintly ridiculous, and Grevy’s zebras, which are larger and more finely striped than the common variety and are, sadly, considerably rarer too.
We spent the night at the Samburu Simba Lodge.
For a full review of Samburu / Buffalo Springs see our Blog Post.
🦒 Day Six – Buffalo Springs
We had a full day in Buffalo Springs ahead of us, with both morning and afternoon game drives on the cards, and the option of nipping across into Samburu National Reserve itself if we fancied it, which we did.
We spent another night at Samburu Simba Lodge, by now feeling thoroughly at home in the place.
🦁 Day Seven – Ol Pajeta Conservancy
There was time for one more early-morning game drive at Buffalo Springs before breakfast, and then it was on with the short 125-kilometre drive over to Ol Pejeta Conservancy.
We arrived at the Sweetwaters Serena Camp inside Ol Pejeta Conservancy just in time for lunch, and had a game drive through the conservancy itself in the afternoon. Ol Pejeta lies in the shadow of Mount Kenya, which at 5,199 metres is the second-highest mountain on the continent after Kilimanjaro, and is — by some distance — considerably trickier to climb than its more famous Tanzanian neighbour, being a genuine technical mountaineering challenge rather than simply a long trudge. The conservancy also straddles the equator itself, which gives you the rather pleasing novelty of standing with one foot in each hemisphere if you find the right spot.
Ol Pejeta is a privately run conservancy, and one of the very best places in Africa to see both black and white rhinos at close quarters. It is, more poignantly, home to the last two northern white rhinos left alive anywhere on earth, a mother and daughter named Najin and Fatu. There used to be a male too, a magnificent old chap called Sudan, but he died back in 2018 at the age of forty-five, after which the subspecies was formally declared functionally extinct, since neither of the two remaining females is physically capable of carrying a pregnancy. It’s a genuinely sobering thing to stand in front of an animal that represents the literal entirety of what’s left of its kind.
The conservancy hasn’t given up the fight, mind you. Together with an international team of scientists, working under a project called BioRescue, they’ve successfully harvested eggs from Fatu — well over twenty times now, by all accounts, which makes her quite possibly the most sedated rhino in history — and created dozens of viable embryos using frozen sperm from northern white rhino bulls who died some years ago. Because Najin and Fatu can’t carry the pregnancy themselves, the plan is to implant these embryos into southern white rhino surrogates instead, with the first successful pregnancy of this kind confirmed back in 2023, even though that particular pregnancy sadly didn’t go to term. It’s about as close to science fiction as conservation gets, and it left both of us rather quiet on the drive back to camp, turning it all over in our heads.
We spent the night at Sweetwaters Serena Camp.
For a full review of Ol Pajeta see our Blog Post.
🦏 Day Eight – Ol Pajeta to Lake Naivasha
We were up early again for a game drive in Ol Pejeta, with sunrise being far and away the best chance of catching Mount Kenya without its usual blanket of cloud — and we got lucky, with the old mountain standing out crisp and clear against the pale morning sky for a good twenty minutes before the haze crept back in.
Early morning view of Mount Kenya at Ol Pajeta Conservancy
A lion cub on the road in Ol Pajeta
After a later breakfast than usual, it was time to head south towards Lake Naivasha — a journey of around four hundred kilometres that took the best part of five hours with stops along the way. We arrived mid-to-late afternoon, which left plenty of the day spare just to relax and recover.
We spent the night at Lake Naivasha Sopa Resort.
🦛 Day Nine – Lake Naivasha to Masai Mara
After breakfast we headed out to Lake Naivasha itself, which is a genuinely enormous body of water covering several hundred square miles, with an average depth of around seven metres that drops away to as much as twenty-four metres in places. The lake sits within the Great Rift Valley at an elevation of nearly 1,890 metres, making it the highest of the Rift Valley lakes, and its Maasai name, Naiposha, apparently means something close to “rough waters,” on account of how quickly the surface can whip up in the wind.
Naivasha is famous above all for its enormous hippo population — well over fifteen hundred of them are thought to live in and around the lake, so you’re more or less guaranteed a sighting — and for the flamingos and other birdlife that flock there in huge numbers, with over four hundred recorded species making it something of a birder’s paradise.
We took a boat tour out onto the lake, and sure enough came across several pods of hippos lolling about in the shallows near the shoreline, along with a generous helping of birdlife: flamingos, pelicans, storks, ducks and fish eagles all going about their business. We also passed local fishermen out on the water, some of them standing waist-deep laying their nets, which struck us as a properly dangerous way to earn a living given that hippos and crocodiles are sharing the same patch of water with them, often only a few feet away.
After the boat tour we took a guided walking visit to the nature reserve along the lake’s banks, known as Crescent Island. It’s a fascinating spot in its own right — the remains of a partially submerged volcanic crater rim, used by Maasai herders for grazing cattle long before any of this became a tourist attraction. The animals you see wandering about today were largely introduced during the filming of the 1985 Oscar-winning film Out of Africa, starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, with the production bringing in giraffes, zebras, wildebeest and others to dress the landscape for the cameras. The animals simply stayed on afterwards, and a few years later rising lake levels cut the peninsula off entirely, turning it into the proper island it remains today. Because there are no predators present, you can walk freely among giraffes, zebras, waterbucks and impalas without a vehicle in sight, which makes for a properly memorable way to spend an afternoon.
For a full review of Lake Naivasha see our Blog Post.
From Lake Naivasha we carried on south towards the Masai Mara, which is probably Kenya’s single most famous game reserve. It’s a drive of around two hundred and fifty kilometres, taking somewhere between four and a half and five hours.
We arrived in the late afternoon and went straight to visit a traditional Maasai village, known locally as a manyatta. We were greeted warmly by the villagers and taken into the compound, where we were treated to traditional dances and demonstrations of various skills, before being shown inside one of the houses to see how the Maasai have traditionally lived for generations — the houses, incidentally, are typically built by the women of the community, using a framework of branches plastered with a mix of mud, sticks, grass and cow dung, which proves remarkably durable. The Maasai themselves are a semi-nomadic pastoralist people who have lived across this part of East Africa for many centuries, traditionally measuring their wealth in cattle rather than money, and they remain one of the most recognisable and culturally distinct ethnic groups on the continent, instantly identifiable by their striking red shuka cloths and elaborate beaded jewellery. After the houses we were led to the back of the compound, where they were selling various crafts. It was undeniably touristy, and we knew exactly what we were getting into, but it was nonetheless a genuinely interesting way to spend an hour or two.
We stayed the night at Zebra Plains Mara Camp.
🦓 Day Ten – Masai Mara
We had a full day of game drives ahead of us in the Masai Mara Reserve, which stretches across some 580 square miles, or 1,510 square kilometres, and is named after the Maasai people who have traditionally grazed cattle here, combined with the word “Mara,” meaning “spotted” in their language, a fair description of how the landscape looks dotted with acacia trees from a distance.
The Mara is renowned the world over for its sheer abundance and variety of wildlife, both grazing species and predators alike, and it’s widely considered the one place left in Kenya that still resembles the wildlife populations of decades ago. Numbers are sadly still in decline overall, even here, which only underlines how important reserves like this one are for what remains.
Among the wildlife we spotted, or had a decent chance of spotting, were hippo, giraffe, waterbuck, reedbuck, roan antelope, warthog, eland, topi, gazelle, zebra, baboon, crocodile, several species of monkey, and black rhino. With the sole exception of the mountain gorilla, all of Africa’s so-called Big Seven can turn up here on a good day, and the Mara is also reckoned to hold the largest population of lions anywhere in Kenya.
For a full review of the Masai Mara National Reserve see our Blog Post.
We spent a second night at Zebra Plains Mara Camp.
✈️ Day Eleven – Nairobi
And so, rather sadly, it was time to leave Kenya behind, either heading home or pressing on to the next leg of the adventure.
We headed back to Nairobi to catch our flight. There’s also the option, if you fancy it, of crossing the border straight into Tanzania from the Mara — which is exactly what we did, the Serengeti being just over the fence, so to speak, from the Masai Mara, the two reserves forming one continuous ecosystem despite the international boundary running straight through the middle of it.
The Best Time to Visit Kenya
☀️ Long Dry Season (June–October)
This is the prime safari season. Rainfall is low, vegetation thins out, and animals gather near water sources, making wildlife easy to spot. The Great Migration reaches the Masai Mara around July and August, with river crossings continuing into September before the herds head back to Tanzania in October. Mornings can be crisp, especially in the highlands.
What to pack: breathable clothing for warm days with a fleece or jumper for cool mornings, neutral-coloured safari wear, a wide-brimmed hat, sunglasses, sun cream, binoculars, a camera, comfortable walking shoes, and a light rain jacket.
🌴 Short Dry Spell (January–February)
A second, shorter dry window between the rains. Inland it’s hot and sunny, with daytime temperatures often in the high twenties to thirties, while the coast is hot and humid. The landscape is still lush from the short rains, parks are quieter than peak season, and it’s a great time to combine safari with beach time or climbing Mount Kenya.
What to pack: light, breezy clothing, swimwear and a sarong for the coast, a hat and high-factor sun cream, insect repellent, a refillable water bottle, sandals plus sturdier shoes for game drives, and a light layer for cooler evenings.
🌧️ Long Rains (March–May)
The wettest period, especially April, with heavy downpours that can make park roads muddy. The upside is lush, green scenery, dramatic skies, fewer tourists, and the lowest prices of the year. May sees rain settle in further, and coastal weather becomes less beach-friendly.
What to pack: a waterproof jacket and trousers, quick-drying clothing, waterproof boots or shoes, a dry bag or rain cover for camera gear, a compact umbrella, insect repellent, and warm layers for damp evenings.
🍃 Short Rains (November–December)
Showers are brief, usually in the afternoon, leaving plenty of dry, sunny hours either side. Most parks and camps stay open, crowds are thinner, and prices drop. December can turn hot, with wildlife viewing still strong throughout.
What to pack: a packable rain jacket, breathable daywear, a hat and sun cream, comfortable quick-drying shoes, a dry bag for electronics, and a warm layer for cooler evenings.
Summary Table
Kenya – Month-by-Month
Visiting Kenya in January – February
The height of summer is an excellent time to spot wildlife, both on the ground and in the air. Temperatures are hot but there will be the odd shower to cool things down, while the landscape is lush with long grass from the ‘short rains’ that fall in November and December. Down on the coast, the days are hot and sunny and the sea is at its clearest.
Visiting Visiting Kenya in February- May
Another great month for spotting wildlife, both on the ground and in the air. Temperatures remain high and the odd shower may fall, while there should still be long grass covering the landscape from the ‘short rains’ that fall in November and December.
Visiting Kenya in March – August
The weather gets wetter as Kenya approaches the ‘long rains’, but game viewing is still good.
Visiting Kenya in April – October
The ‘long rains’ of April and May can turn the tracks through the parks into quagmires and make the beaches along the Indian Ocean coastline hot and very wet, so this isn’t the best time to travel.
Visiting Kenya in May
The ‘long rains’ of April and May can turn the tracks through the parks into quagmires and the beaches along the Indian Ocean coastline hot and very wet, so this isn’t the best time to travel
Visiting Kenya in June
The rains have finished for the most part, although some light showers are still possible, and the nights can be cool at altitude. The long dry season is on the horizon, and while grasses are high, making game harder to spot at times, it is a beautiful time to visit. People start anticipating the arrival of the Great Migration into the Masai Mara.
Visiting Visiting Kenya in July
The weather is temperate and dry but not too dusty, with occasional showers still possible, making this a good time to visit overall. The first herds arrive into the Masai Mara from Tanzania and peak travel and game viewing season is just around the corner.
Visiting Visiting Kenya in August
The temperatures are pleasant and it’s mostly dry, making it one of the peak times to visit. Fantastic game viewing can be enjoyed now, with the Great Migration at its height in the Masai Mara providing lots of action at the river crossings as countless wildebeest and zebra gather and cross the Mara and Talek Rivers.
Visiting Visiting Kenya in September
The weather is generally dry. The game viewing action continues in the Mara, and it is still excellent throughout Kenya for wildlife.
Visiting Visiting Kenya in October
As the mercury slowly starts to rise, a few showers are possible. However, it’s a lovely time to travel if you want to avoid the crowds but still have excellent game viewing opportunities. The migratory herds are leaving the Mara now, but excellent resident populations remain. All other Kenya destinations are great at this time of year.
Visiting Visiting Kenya in November
The short rains are starting and the temperature is hotter, but the Mara, along with most other destinations, remains open. However, on the Laikipia Plateau many camps are closed. There is still good game viewing under the heavier skies and activities continue. Crowds dissipate and you can often make the most of some good deals.
Visiting Visiting Kenya in December
The end of the year can be hot and potentially wet — it’s the middle of the short rains, with some camps closed (particularly in the north) and some open. Where camps are open, wildlife viewing remains very good, with high bird numbers present.
More to Explore
