5-Day Aberdare Nakuru & Mara Highlands to Plains Safari

Your highlands to plains safari departs Nairobi after breakfast and drives north toward the cool green highlands of the Aberdare National Park, a journey of approximately two and a half hours through the Kikuyu highlands and Nyeri countryside. Arriving at the park in the late morning, you check into your treetop or ark-style lodge perched above a natural waterhole in the montane forest. After lunch at the lodge, the afternoon is spent on game viewing walks on the lodge grounds and from the viewing decks overlooking the waterhole. As the afternoon matures, the first visitors arrive at the salt lick and waterhole below, with waterbuck, bushbuck, and warthog among the early arrivals. As darkness falls and the floodlights illuminate the waterhole, the nocturnal wildlife experience begins in earnest, with elephants, giant forest hog, and black rhino regularly visiting through the night.

After a morning watching the Aberdare waterhole activity over breakfast, you depart and drive the approximately one hour south to Lake Nakuru National Park. Arriving at the park gate, you begin your morning game drive through the acacia forest and along the flamingo-ringed lake shore. Thousands of lesser flamingo create a vivid pink horizon along the alkaline water’s edge, while white rhinos graze peacefully in open clearings overlooked by yellow-barked fever trees. The park’s resident leopards are regularly seen draped in the broad horizontal branches of these iconic trees, and your guide has detailed knowledge of the most reliable leopard territories. Rothschild giraffe, abundant buffalo, and lions on open grasslands complete a remarkably diverse morning of game viewing before you depart in the afternoon for Lake Nakuru town and an overnight in or near the park.

After breakfast, depart Lake Nakuru and drive southwest toward the Maasai Mara National Reserve through the Mau Escarpment highlands, a scenic journey of approximately three and a half hours. The road winds through highland tea farms and Kalenjin market towns before descending the Mau Escarpment and crossing into Narok County and the sweeping Mara grasslands. Arriving at the Mara in the early afternoon, the scale and openness of the savannah is immediately exhilarating after the forested Rift Valley parks. Check into your camp and set out on an afternoon game drive across the vast plains where elephant herds, buffalo, and the Mara’s legendary predators begin their late afternoon activity. The Mara River drive as the sun sets is an unforgettable experience, with hippos emerging from the water and crocodiles gliding through the evening light.

Dedicate a full day to the Maasai Mara with morning and afternoon game drives covering the reserve’s most productive wildlife areas. The early morning begins with the plains alive: lions are often visible from camp as they return from nocturnal hunts, cheetah are scanning the grasslands from termite mound lookouts, and herds of wildebeest and zebra are already moving across the horizon. Your guide navigates the most productive sectors of the reserve, alternating between the Mara River banks, the open Mara Triangle grasslands, and the acacia-dotted corridors where leopard and elephant are reliably found. The afternoon drive delivers the celebrated golden hour photography on the Mara plains before a final sunset bush drink.

Enjoy a peaceful final morning at the Mara camp, listening to the bush and watching wildlife from the camp grounds before a final breakfast. After checking out, you depart for the drive back to Nairobi, completing your five-day highlands to plains safari circuit. The five-hour return drive offers a last view of the Mara ecosystem and the Great Rift Valley before you arrive in Nairobi in the late afternoon.