7-Day Kenya Platinum Safari – Mara Samburu & Amboseli VIP Tour

Your Kenya Platinum Safari begins at Wilson Airport where your exclusive aircraft awaits for the scenic one-hour flight to the Maasai Mara. The aerial crossing of the Great Rift Valley is a spectacular introduction to the scale and beauty of Kenya’s landscapes, and the Mara ecosystem spreads below in breathtaking immensity as you descend to the bush airstrip. Your dedicated private guide and a chilled welcome drink await on the tarmac. After a gourmet lodge lunch, your first private game drive heads into the Mara’s finest lion territory as the afternoon sun transforms the grasslands to gold. Lion prides, elephant families, and the mesmerising movement of the open plains wildlife set the tone for a safari week of exceptional quality.

A full day in the Maasai Mara begins before dawn with your private guide, who has been monitoring wildlife movements since first light and takes you directly to a location where a lion pride was seen on a kill overnight. The morning drive delivers extraordinary predator sightings at close range in the private vehicle, followed by a bush breakfast served on the savannah. The afternoon drive explores the Mara Triangle sector, where different lion territories, a resident cheetah coalition, and the highest buffalo concentrations in the reserve combine for an afternoon of virtually continuous wildlife sightings. Your guide selects a spectacular riverine viewpoint for sundowner drinks as hippos surface in the golden river below.

After a final breakfast at the Mara lodge, your aircraft departs northward on the hour-long flight to Samburu National Reserve. The journey crosses the equator and passes Mount Kenya’s glacial peaks before descending into the rust-red semi-arid northern frontier. Your Samburu specialist guide meets you at the airstrip with the first wildlife briefing: a Grevy’s zebra stallion has been seen at the waterhole behind the camp and the resident leopard is in the riverine fig grove. Lunch is served at your riverside camp before the afternoon game drive along the Ewaso Nyiro River, where the first Special Five encounters begin: reticulated giraffe crossing the dry riverbed, gerenuk browsing on hind legs in the acacias, and the distinctive large ears and tall stance of Grevy’s zebra at the water’s edge.

A full Samburu day with morning and afternoon game drives explores every sector of this extraordinary northern reserve. The morning follows the Ewaso Nyiro River where enormous elephant families bathe in the shallows, Nile crocodiles patrol the banks, and a pride of Samburu lions adapted to the semi-arid conditions hunts through the doum palms. Your guide tracks the Beisa oryx across the volcanic plains and locates the Somali ostrich pair with their distinctive blue colouring in the open scrubland, completing remarkable sightings of all five of Samburu’s exclusive species. The afternoon drive ventures into the remote eastern sector where leopards are frequently encountered in the late afternoon light and the changing colors of the volcanic landscape are spectacular in the golden hour before sunset.

Morning departure from Samburu on the southward flight to Amboseli National Park at the foot of Africa’s highest mountain. The aerial journey from Samburu south to Amboseli reveals Kenya’s entire geographic spine from above: the central highlands, the Rift Valley, the Chyulu Hills, and finally the vast volcanic plains of Amboseli with Kilimanjaro’s white summit dominating the southern horizon. Your Amboseli specialist guide transfers you to your luxury lodge for lunch with uninterrupted mountain views before an afternoon game drive through the park’s unique ecosystem of swamps, dried lake beds, and acacia woodland. Large elephant families are immediately visible against the Kilimanjaro backdrop, providing the iconic images that have made Amboseli one of the most celebrated photographic safari destinations on Earth.

A full day in Amboseli with morning and afternoon game drives capitalises on the park’s extraordinary combination of mega-fauna and mountain scenery. The early morning drive is the best time for Kilimanjaro photography, with the summit visible in crystalline clarity before morning clouds build around the peak. Your guide navigates to the swamp areas where lion prides stalk the buffalo herds and cheetah are visible on the open dusty plains. Flamingo, pelicans, and herons congregate around the seasonal springs in spectacular numbers, and the park’s resident hippo population bathes in pools surrounded by elephants and waterbuck. The sunset drive returns to the most iconic Amboseli viewpoints where silhouettes of elephants crossing the dusty plains with Kilimanjaro above them create images that define the Africa of the imagination.

A final sunrise in Amboseli as Kilimanjaro catches the first pink light above the elephant-dotted plains is an image you will carry forever. After a leisurely breakfast at the lodge, your guide offers a brief final drive around the lodge surroundings where buffalo graze and the resident elephant bulls are often visible at close range. Transfer to the Amboseli airstrip for your return flight to Nairobi’s Wilson Airport, arriving by midday. Your Kenya Platinum Safari concludes at Wilson Airport, seven days and three extraordinary parks later, with a collection of wildlife memories, photographs, and experiences that represent the very finest that Kenya’s safari landscape has to offer.