6-Day Private Safari – Mara Nakuru & Amboseli Best of Kenya

Begin your Best of Kenya private safari with an early morning departure from Nairobi, heading southwest through the Rift Valley toward the Maasai Mara. The five-hour drive passes through Narok town and the escarpment road descending to the Mara valley, with wildlife beginning to appear along the roadsides as you enter the reserve catchment area. Arrive at your Mara lodge for a welcome lunch before setting out on your first afternoon game drive. The Mara’s open terrain provides excellent visibility and your guide targets the known territories of resident lion prides, cheetah on the open plains, and elephant herds browsing the woodland edges. The late afternoon golden light creates superb photography conditions as the savannah comes alive with activity before nightfall.

Dedicate an entire day to the Maasai Mara on morning and afternoon game drives in your private 4×4. The early drive at first light offers the best chances for predator activity, with lions often still on kills from the previous night and hyenas completing their dawn patrols. Your guide navigates toward the Mara River where hippo pods occupy the deeper pools and massive Nile crocodiles bask on the sandy banks. During the July to October migration season, the river crossing areas are the most dramatic wildlife spectacle in Africa. A bush picnic lunch is served in the field before the afternoon drive explores less-visited sectors of the reserve, targeting the tree-climbing tendencies of resident leopards and the late-afternoon hunting patterns of the Mara’s remarkable cheetah population.

As this is the final morning in the Maasai Mara, you enjoy a leisurely breakfast at the lodge before departing without a morning game drive. The drive north and east to Lake Nakuru takes approximately three hours through the Rift Valley, passing through Narok and climbing the escarpment wall toward Nakuru town. Arrive at your Nakuru lodge for lunch before heading straight into the park for an afternoon game drive. Lake Nakuru National Park is a fully fenced sanctuary home to both black and white rhino, and your guide takes you through the forested zones where rhinos browse in the acacia scrub. The lake itself is a spectacular sight, with hundreds of thousands of lesser flamingo turning the shoreline pink and white pelicans gliding in formation across the alkaline surface. Lions and leopards complete the Nakuru Big Five experience as evening approaches.

After a morning game drive through Lake Nakuru to make the most of the early light over the flamingo lake, check out and begin the long drive south to Amboseli National Park. This five-hour journey via Nairobi’s southern bypass is the most logistically demanding transfer of the safari, but your guide keeps the journey interesting with commentary on the landscapes and communities you pass through. Arriving at Amboseli by late afternoon, check into your lodge just as the sun begins its descent and Mount Kilimanjaro emerges from its daytime cloud cap in the evening light. A short welcome game drive introduces you to the Amboseli ecosystem and gives your guide a first look at elephant family movements before dinner at the lodge.

A full day in Amboseli National Park on two extended private game drives focused on the park’s extraordinary elephant population and iconic mountain backdrop. The pre-dawn departure places you at the marshes as the first light illuminates Kilimanjaro’s snow-capped summit and elephant families emerge from the wetlands into the golden morning. Your guide identifies individual elephants by their tusks and ear shapes, explaining the long-term research that has tracked these families across generations. The afternoon drive explores the dried lakebed, acacia scrubland, and wetland edges, with outstanding birdwatching throughout and the ever-present possibility of cheetah and lion encounters on the open plains. Sundowner drinks at the lodge with a final Kilimanjaro sunset view complete a magnificent day.

Enjoy a relaxed final breakfast at the Amboseli lodge with panoramic mountain views before beginning the four-hour drive back to Nairobi. The return journey passes through the Kajiado savannah and the outskirts of the capital, arriving by midday. Your six-day Best of Kenya private safari concludes with memories spanning three of Africa’s most extraordinary wildlife destinations, from the Big Five of the Mara and the flamingo-filled crater of Nakuru to the elephant paradise of Amboseli beneath the eternal gaze of Mount Kilimanjaro.