7-Day Tsavo Amboseli Naivasha & Mara Coast-to-Mara Safari

Your Tsavo Amboseli Naivasha Mara safari begins with a morning departure from Nairobi heading southeast on the Nairobi-Mombasa highway. After approximately four hours of driving through the Athi plains and the Kapiti Conservation Area, you enter Tsavo East National Park at the Mtito Andei gate. The vast red laterite plains stretch endlessly under the African sky as you drive to your lodge on the banks of the Galana River. After lunch, an afternoon game drive explores the riverine habitat where large elephant herds drink and bathe, enormous Nile crocodiles patrol the shallows, and the park’s famous maneless lions are sought on the open plains.

A full day in Tsavo East on morning and afternoon game drives through one of Africa’s most remote and impressive national parks. The Galana River is the park’s central wildlife artery and your guide follows its course through diverse habitats from open floodplain to dense riverine forest. Tsavo’s elephants are legendary for their red colouring, acquired by dust bathing in the iron-rich laterite soil, and observing these magnificent animals at close range is a highlight of any East Africa safari. The afternoon drive ventures across the open Yatta Plateau, the world’s longest lava flow, where cheetah, gerenuk, lesser kudu, and the open-plain bird species unique to Tsavo complete the wildlife picture.

After breakfast in Tsavo East, you drive west into the wildlife corridor between Tsavo and Amboseli, passing through the Kimana Conservation Area before entering Amboseli National Park. The landscape transforms dramatically as Mount Kilimanjaro fills the western horizon, its snow-capped summit impossibly tall above the flat volcanic plains. You arrive at your Amboseli lodge for lunch with panoramic mountain views from the dining terrace. The afternoon game drive takes you through Amboseli’s iconic swamplands where spring-fed pools attract extraordinary concentrations of elephant, hippo, and waterbirds against the Kilimanjaro backdrop.

Spend a full day in Amboseli National Park dedicated to experiencing the park’s extraordinary wildlife and iconic landscapes. The morning begins in the predawn darkness, driving out to prime locations as the first Kilimanjaro light illuminates the mountain above the cloud and the plains slowly reveal their extraordinary wildlife to the growing light. Your guide visits the famous swamp observation points, the dried lake bed where dust devils spiral, and the open plains where cheetah hunt Thomson’s gazelle. The afternoon drive explores the woodland margins where lion prides rest in the shade and elephant families move majestically through the golden late-afternoon light.

After breakfast at the Amboseli lodge, you drive north through the Rift Valley toward Lake Naivasha. The journey climbs steadily from the Amboseli basin through the highlands of Nairobi’s outskirts before descending to the Rift Valley floor and the shores of Lake Naivasha. You arrive at your lakeside camp for a relaxed lunch with hippos visible just offshore. The afternoon features a boat safari on Lake Naivasha among pods of hippos and extraordinary waterbirds, followed by an optional walking safari in the adjacent Crescent Island Game Sanctuary where giraffe, zebra, and wildebeest roam freely without predators.

After an early breakfast at Lake Naivasha, you begin the scenic drive northwest to the Maasai Mara. The route climbs the dramatic Mau Escarpment from the Rift Valley floor, offering sweeping views back across the lake and the valley walls, before descending into the vast Narok plains. The transition from the Rift Valley’s lake country to the open savannah of the Mara ecosystem is one of Kenya’s most dramatic landscape transitions. You arrive at your lodge in time for lunch and head out for an afternoon game drive as your first encounter with the Maasai Mara’s legendary wildlife density begins.

Rise before dawn for a final morning game drive in the Maasai Mara, capturing the last sunrise over the golden grasslands as lions patrol the plains and elephant families move through the acacia woodland. The morning hours are the Mara at its most active and your guide uses the full time available for the best predator and plains game encounters before the heat of the day. After the game drive and a hearty breakfast at the lodge, you check out and drive back to Nairobi through the Mau Escarpment, arriving in the capital by early evening to complete this outstanding 7-day southern Kenya circuit safari.