Samburu · Lake Nakuru · Maasai Mara · Lake Naivasha
Kenya – The Nine-Day Explorer
The reason to go north — and to stay inside the wild. Samburu is dry, rugged country that holds animals you won't see in the Mara: the reticulated giraffe, the Grevy's zebra, the long-necked gerenuk. This journey opens with two nights there, then works south through the Rift Valley to Nakuru and the Maasai Mara — where you stay inside the reserve itself, so the morning game drive begins at your tent rather than at a gate — before unwinding on Lake Naivasha and the drive back to Nairobi. It's the trip for travelers who've seen the postcard and want the parts of Kenya that aren't on it.
The drive north to Samburu is a full day — roughly six hours with a lunch stop.
- Length
- 9 days
- Regions
- 4
- Vehicle
- Private 4×4 Toyota Land Cruiser with pop-up roof · window seat for every guest · max 6
- Game viewing
- National park / reserve
Day by day
Day 1 — Arrive Nairobi
You’ll be met inside Jomo Kenyatta International with a Wesley Chapel Travel board — no hunting for a stranger in a crowd after a long flight — and driven the short way to the Four Points by Sheraton at the airport. There’s a brief safari orientation when you arrive, and then the rest of the day is yours.
Sleep, sit by the pool, or do nothing at all. The safari starts properly tomorrow, and there’s no sense arriving in Samburu already tired.
Overnight: Four Points by Sheraton Nairobi Airport · breakfast
Day 2 — Nairobi to Samburu
An early start and a long, genuinely scenic drive north — roughly 5-6 hours with a lunch stop, so this is a full travel day, not a hop. The road climbs through Kenya’s central highlands past coffee, tea and pineapple country, with Mount Kenya off to your right on a clear morning, and crosses the equator at Nanyuki, where there’s a marked sign and the little water-spinning demonstration if you want the photo. You’ll reach Samburu Simba Lodge in time to settle in before heading out on your first afternoon game drive.
Samburu is the reason this journey goes north. The wildlife here isn’t the wildlife of the Mara — this is dry, rugged country fed by the Ewaso Nyiro River, and it holds species you’ll see nowhere else on the classic route. Keep an eye out for the Samburu Special Five: the Grevy’s zebra, reticulated giraffe, Beisa oryx, Somali ostrich and the long-necked gerenuk, alongside elephant, lion and a genuine chance at leopard as the light softens toward evening.
Overnight: Samburu Simba Lodge · lunch, dinner, breakfast
Day 3 — Samburu
A full day in the reserve, morning and afternoon, with the middle of the day free to rest at the lodge when the heat is up and the animals are still. Much of the life here centers on the Ewaso Nyiro, the river that runs through Samburu and draws elephant, crocodile and an enormous range of birds down to its banks to drink.
It’s also one of the better places in Kenya to find leopard, resting up in the doum palms through the heat of the afternoon — though they keep their own schedule and nothing is ever promised. Your driver-guide knows the reserve and where the cats have been moving, which is most of the game up here.
Overnight: Samburu Simba Lodge · lunch, dinner, breakfast
Day 4 — Samburu to Lake Nakuru
South out of the dry north and down into the Great Rift Valley, with a viewpoint stop to take in the escarpment and lunch along the way. Your destination is Lake Nakuru — a small, fenced park that’s easy to work in a day, and one of the real conservation successes in Kenya.
In the afternoon, a game drive through the park. Nakuru is home to both black and white rhino, which makes it one of the surest places in the country to see them — and alongside the rhino you’ll find Rothschild’s giraffe, lion, buffalo, waterbuck and, depending on the water levels and the season, the flamingos the soda lake is famous for. Dinner tonight looks out over the park from Sarova Lion Hill, up on the ridge.
Overnight: Sarova Lion Hill Game Lodge · lunch, dinner, breakfast
Day 5 — Lake Nakuru to the Maasai Mara
Today’s drive is taken at an unhurried pace, out of the Rift Valley and on to the Mara — the Kenya most people picture when they think of safari. You’ll reach Ashnil Mara Camp in time for lunch and be out on a first afternoon game drive the same day.
The camp sits inside the reserve, which matters more than it sounds: game viewing begins the moment you leave your tent, not after a morning drive out to a gate. The Mara delivers year-round — lion, elephant, buffalo, cheetah, leopard and antelope in enormous variety across open grassland that runs unbroken to the horizon.
Overnight: Ashnil Mara Camp · lunch, dinner, breakfast
Day 6 — Maasai Mara
A full day in the reserve, either as morning and afternoon drives or one long day out with a picnic lunch — your driver-guide reads the conditions and the wildlife and plans the day accordingly. This is Big Five country, and the day is built around finding them and whatever else the Mara turns up: cheetah scanning from a termite mound, elephant moving in family groups, a lion pride flat out in the shade by midday.
From July into October there’s the chance of the Great Migration, when wildebeest and zebra mass along the Mara River and cross in their thousands against the current and the crocodiles — one of the genuine spectacles of the natural world, and never on a schedule anyone can promise.
Overnight: Ashnil Mara Camp · lunch, dinner, breakfast
Day 7 — Maasai Mara
A second full day, and the one that changes the trip. Two days in the Mara means you can work different parts of the reserve, sit with a single sighting instead of rushing on to the next, and give the photography the time it actually needs. Predators one day, elephant herds and open plains the next — this is the day people remember.
An optional visit to a Maasai village can be arranged if you’d like a closer look at the community whose land borders the reserve — arranged in advance, and done properly rather than as a quick photo stop.
Overnight: Ashnil Mara Camp · lunch, dinner, breakfast
Day 8 — Maasai Mara to Lake Naivasha
A scenic drive back up through the Rift Valley to Lake Naivasha, a freshwater lake ringed by tall acacias and papyrus — a complete change of scene from the plains, and a soft place to land before the long flight home.
If you’d like to get out on the water, there are two optional add-ons here: a boat safari among the hippos and the birdlife, and a guided walk on Crescent Island, one of the few places in Kenya you can walk on foot among giraffe, zebra and antelope with no predators around. Otherwise it’s an easy afternoon by design — a hot shower and dinner at the resort, sitting between two busier days.
Overnight: Lake Naivasha Resort · lunch, dinner, breakfast
Day 9 — Return to Nairobi
After breakfast you leave Naivasha and drive back to Nairobi, arriving in the afternoon and transferring to Jomo Kenyatta International for your onward flight home, taking with you the reticulated giraffe of the north, the rhino of Nakuru and three days of the Mara.
If your international flight leaves late in the evening, tell Milli — a day room at an airport hotel so you can shower and rest before a long flight is easy to arrange, and worth it.
Meal plan: breakfast
Where you'll stay
Included
- All meals on safari — breakfast, lunch and dinner as shown
- Eight nights' accommodation, including the arrival night in Nairobi
- Private 4×4 Land Cruiser with pop-up roof — a window seat for every guest
- Professional English-speaking driver-guide throughout
- All park and reserve entrance fees, government taxes and levies
- Beer and house wine up to US$40 per property — drinks included
- Complimentary laundry at selected lodges (limits apply)
- Bottled water in the vehicle on game drives
- Airport meet-and-greet and all transfers
Not included
- International flights
- Kenya's Electronic Travel Authorization — US$30 per person
- Travel insurance — comprehensive cover is required, not optional
- Medical evacuation cover
- Tips and gratuities — about US$10 a day for the driver-guide
- Optional activities — balloon safari (US$500), Maasai village (US$50), Naivasha boat & Crescent Island
- Snacks between meals, personal expenses
What we'd rather tell you now
Most of what goes wrong on a trip is an expectation nobody corrected in advance. So here's what this journey is not, before you spend anything.
- Inside the reserve, but still reserve rules The three Mara nights are inside the national reserve — a genuine advantage, and rare at this price. But you're still under park rules: no off-road driving, no night drives, and fixed gate times. Conservancy properties can do all three, at a considerably higher price; this journey isn't one, and we'd rather you knew that plainly.
- A driver-guide, not a separate private guide One professional English-speaking driver-guide drives, spots and explains — and is good at all three. What you don't get is a separate naturalist traveling alongside; that's a different tier of trip at a different price.
- The safari vehicle is not air-conditioned The pop-up roof is built for game viewing and the windows open, but there's no A/C. On the long northern leg to Samburu, that's worth knowing before you go.
- Evacuation cover isn't included No medical-evacuation membership forms part of this journey. Comprehensive travel insurance with medical and evacuation cover is a condition of traveling with us, and we'll ask to see it.
Plan this journey
Every price here is a starting point. Tell Milli your dates and who's traveling, and she'll come back with the exact trip and the exact number, in a written quote — not a brochure.
Plan your Journey →