8-Day Ultimate Kenya Safari Experience

Your Kenyan adventure begins the moment you land at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, where our team greets you with a warm welcome and a friendly face. You are transferred through the leafy suburbs of Kenya's capital to your hotel, where the afternoon is free to unwind at around 1,800 m above sea level, in Nairobi's famously mild climate.

Before dinner your driver-guide will brief you on the days ahead, from road conditions to what to pack in your day bag. Enjoy a relaxed first evening and an early night: the wild country beyond the city is waiting. Overnight in Nairobi.

After breakfast, travel north from Nairobi through the green Kikuyu highlands and coffee country, with Mount Kenya's jagged peaks on your right. After a stop on the equator at Nanyuki, the road drops towards the semi-desert of the north, where flat-topped Ol Lolokwe mountain rises above the scrub, around 5–6 hours in total.

After lunch at your lodge, enjoy an afternoon game drive in Samburu National Reserve, looking for the first of the Samburu Special Five, the reticulated giraffe, Grevy's zebra, gerenuk, beisa oryx and Somali ostrich, all animals rarely seen in the south of Kenya. Dinner and overnight in Samburu.

Begin with an early game drive while the air is still cool, following the river in search of elephants, big cats and the rare northern species that make this reserve so special: the gerenuk standing on its hind legs to browse, the beisa oryx with its rapier horns and the boldly striped Grevy's zebra.

In the afternoon, visit a Samburu village near the reserve. The Samburu are close cousins of the Maasai, and their warriors, dressed in red cloth and bright beadwork, will share songs, dances and stories of a pastoral life tied to cattle, camels and the land. Return for a sunset game drive before dinner and overnight in Samburu.

Leave Samburu after breakfast and climb back towards the cooler Laikipia plateau, recrossing the equator on the way to Ol Pejeta Conservancy, around 3 hours' drive. On a clear day the snow-streaked peaks of Mount Kenya fill the skyline.

In the afternoon, visit the Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary, the only place in Kenya to see chimpanzees, which gives a lifelong home to animals rescued from the illegal wildlife trade. Continue with a game drive in search of rhinos, lions and elephants before dinner and overnight at Ol Pejeta Conservancy.

After breakfast, leave Laikipia and drive west via Nyahururu, where you stop to see Thomson's Falls plunging into a forested gorge, before descending into the Great Rift Valley to Lake Nakuru National Park, a journey of around 4 hours.

After lunch, set out on an afternoon game drive in this compact, fenced park on the shore of a Rift Valley soda lake. Lake Nakuru is home to more than 100 black and white rhinos and the endangered Rothschild's giraffe, while flamingos and pelicans gather along the shoreline and leopards hide in the yellow fever-tree forest. Dinner and overnight at Lake Nakuru.

After an early breakfast, and perhaps a final short game drive along the lakeshore, leave Lake Nakuru and drive south-west through Narok, the last town before the Mara, to the Masai Mara National Reserve, around 5–6 hours. The scenery opens up as you go, with Maasai herders and their cattle on the rolling plains.

Arrive at your camp in time for lunch, then head out on an afternoon game drive across the spotted plains that give the Mara its name. Lions, elephants, giraffes, topis and herds of plains game are everywhere, and the golden late-afternoon light is the perfect introduction to Kenya's most celebrated reserve. Dinner and overnight in the Masai Mara.

Spend a full day exploring the Masai Mara with a picnic lunch, so you can travel further and stay out with the animals when the action unfolds. The reserve borders Tanzania's Serengeti and forms the northern part of the same great ecosystem, and from around July to October it hosts the Great Wildebeest Migration, when over a million wildebeest, zebras and gazelles graze its plains.

If the herds are here, your guide will head for the Mara River in the hope of witnessing a crossing, as wildebeest plunge into the water past waiting Nile crocodiles. At any time of year, the Mara is a Big Five haven, with lions, leopards, cheetahs, elephants and buffalo all regularly seen. Dinner and overnight in the Masai Mara.

Enjoy a relaxed breakfast with the sounds of the bush around you, then say goodbye to the Mara and begin the drive back to Nairobi, around 5–6 hours. Game viewing continues as you leave the reserve, so keep your camera ready until the very last moment.

After lunch on the way, continue to Nairobi, where you are dropped at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for your departure flight or at your hotel if you are extending your stay. Kwaheri, and thank you for travelling with Gip Adventure.