6-Day Aberdare Nakuru Naivasha and Mara Highlands Circuit Safari

Your highlands circuit safari departs Nairobi early heading north through Thika and the coffee and tea estates of Murang’a before climbing through the Aberdare foothills to the park gate. The Aberdare National Park spans the highland moorland and dense forest zone of the Aberdare Mountain Range, rising to over 4,000 metres at its highest peaks. As you enter the park, the temperature drops noticeably and the forest closes around the road with towering cedar, podocarpus, and Aberdare heath plants forming a cathedral canopy overhead. En route to your treetop accommodation, your guide stops at viewpoints overlooking highland valleys and waterfalls that cascade down the steep escarpment. Check into your iconic treetop lodge perched on stilts above a floodlit waterhole and salt lick, where nocturnal wildlife visits throughout the night for outstanding wildlife observation.

The Aberdare treetop experience begins before sunrise with wildlife that has been visiting the waterhole through the night. Elephants, buffalo, and giant forest hog are commonly recorded at the salt lick, and leopard and hyena are occasional nocturnal visitors. After breakfast at the treetop lodge, your guide leads a vehicle-based excursion through the Aberdare forest zone targeting special highland species. The endangered bongo, a large chestnut forest antelope with white stripes, is occasionally spotted at forest clearings and salt licks in the montane zone. The park’s spectacular waterfalls are a highlight of any Aberdare visit: Karuru Falls drops in three stages over 272 metres making it one of the highest waterfalls in Africa, while the twin Gura Falls and the accessible Chania Falls offer memorable photography in their misty rainforest settings. Return to the lodge for lunch before an afternoon drive through different forest sectors seeking black-and-white colobus monkeys, olive baboons, and the park’s many highland bird species.

After breakfast at the Aberdare treetop lodge, you descend from the highland forest back through the Rift Valley escarpment to Lake Nakuru National Park, approximately 2 hours by road. The descent from the cool highlands to the warm Rift Valley floor is one of Kenya’s great scenic drives, with panoramic views opening across the soda lake system below. You arrive at Lake Nakuru in time for a welcome lunch before an afternoon game drive around the lakeside circuit. The park’s famous flamingo populations often colour the entire shoreline in shades of pink, while on the western grasslands and acacia woodlands, Rothschild giraffes browse the treetops and both white and black rhinos can be found grazing in the open areas. The yellow fever tree forest bordering the lake is prime leopard territory, and your guide knows the favourite resting trees frequented by the park’s resident leopard population.

A morning game drive through Lake Nakuru continues the rhino search, following the lakeside track where rhinos are most active in the cooler morning hours. After breakfast, you drive south to Lake Naivasha, a 90-minute journey through the Rift Valley farmlands and flower-growing country that supplies European markets. Check into your lakeside lodge for lunch before a boat safari on Lake Naivasha in the afternoon. The lake’s calm freshwater surface is home to one of Kenya’s most impressive concentrations of resident and migratory waterbirds, with African fish eagles, grey-crowned cranes, African spoonbills, and Goliath herons among the highlights. After the boat safari, an optional guided walk on Crescent Island, an exposed peninsula accessible by boat, allows you to walk among free-roaming giraffes, zebras, and wildebeest in a predator-free sanctuary.

Depart Lake Naivasha after breakfast on the 3 to 4 hour drive south and west through the Rift Valley to the Maasai Mara National Reserve. The route passes through Narok town and climbs the Mara escarpment before the road descends dramatically onto the open savannah that signals your arrival in Africa’s greatest wildlife arena. Check into your tented camp or lodge in time for lunch and then head straight out on an afternoon game drive to make the most of your first Mara hours. The afternoon light is perfect for photography, and first-time Mara visitors are invariably overwhelmed by the sheer density of wildlife visible from any high point across the reserve. Lion, elephant, giraffe, and vast herds of wildebeest and zebra may all be sighted within the first hour of game driving.

Enjoy a leisurely breakfast at your Mara lodge or camp while the savannah landscape wakens around you with birdsong and the distant sounds of wildlife. After breakfast, check out and depart for the return drive to Nairobi through the Mara Triangle and the highland road through Narok and Naivasha, arriving back in Nairobi by early to mid-afternoon. This final drive through the Rift Valley highlands concludes a 6-day journey that has taken you through more different Kenya ecosystems and habitats than most visitors see in two weeks, delivering a circuit safari of extraordinary depth and diversity.