The Safari Experience
The Safari Experience
Kenya rewards travellers who move beyond a single park, and this 9-day journey is built around exactly that idea: the towering presence of Mount Kilimanjaro over Amboseli’s elephant herds, the freshwater drama of the Great Rift Valley’s lakes, and the unmatched grasslands of the Maasai Mara, all woven into a single, well-paced safari. From Tortilis Camp’s private concession on Kilimanjaro’s doorstep to a colonial-era farmhouse on Lake Naivasha and the storied riverbanks of Governors’ Camp, this itinerary moves through some of Kenya’s most iconic settings without ever feeling rushed between them.
Nine days, three landscapes, and the kind of variety that turns a safari into a genuine portrait of Kenya, big tuskers beneath an equatorial snowcap, flamingo-pink lakeshores, and the open plains that gave the modern safari its name.
Detailed Safari
Day 1: Arrival in Nairobi
You are met on arrival at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and transferred to the Tamarind Tree Hotel, where you’ll spend the night on a bed and breakfast basis, with breakfast served the following morning. It’s a calm, comfortable start to the journey, a chance to settle in before an early flight begins tomorrow’s adventure in earnest.
Day 2: Fly Into Amboseli National Park
A scheduled flight departs Wilson Airport at 0730hrs, with collection from the Tamarind Tree beforehand, landing in Amboseli at 0805hrs. You’ll be met by your host on arrival and transferred to Tortilis Camp, set within its own private concession bordering the national park, with an afternoon game drive to follow almost immediately.
Amboseli sits at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain, and takes its name from the Maasai phrase for “the place of water,” a fitting description for a park whose swamps and springs are fed by snowmelt filtered through thousands of metres of volcanic rock. All meals and your overnight stay are at the camp.
Day 3: A Full Day of Game Drives at Amboseli National Park
You’ll spend the entire day exploring Amboseli across morning and afternoon game drives. Among the species regularly seen are elephant, zebra, wildebeest, giraffe, impala, and leopard, with Tortilis Camp’s own private herd of eastern white-bearded wildebeest, a population genetically distinct from the one further west in the Mara and Serengeti, adding a particular note of interest to the area.
The birdlife is equally rewarding, with pelican, bee-eater, kingfisher, African fish eagle, and pygmy falcon all recorded here. Amboseli remains one of Kenya’s most beloved parks for good reason: a home to massive elephant herds set against the unmistakable backdrop of Mount Kilimanjaro. All meals and your overnight stay are at Tortilis Camp.
Day 4: Fly South to Nairobi, road transfer to Lake Naivasha
A flight returns you from Amboseli to Wilson Airport in Nairobi, where a road transfer carries you onward to Loldia House on the shores of Lake Naivasha, driving down through the floor of the Great Rift Valley. Along the way, a photography stop at the Rift Valley Viewpoint offers one of the most striking panoramas on the entire route, with Mount Longonot standing tall across the valley floor.
After lunch, a boat ride across the lake brings you to Crescent Island, where you can walk freely among giraffe, zebra, and waterbuck with no predators in sight, a genuinely unusual way to experience African wildlife on foot. Lake Naivasha itself is the second-largest freshwater lake in Kenya and holds a thriving birdlife population worth its own quiet attention. You’ll return to the house for dinner and an overnight stay.
Day 5: A Day Trip Into The Great Rift Valley – Lake Nakuru
After a relaxed breakfast, you’ll head out on a day trip to Lake Nakuru National Park, with a picnic lunch and an exciting game drive planned for the day. The park’s wildlife is plentiful, and its birdwatching has won over even the most reluctant of converts, with stunning flocks of lesser and greater flamingos turning entire stretches of lakeshore a vivid pink. Over 400 bird species call this park home, including white pelican, plover, egret, and marabou stork.
Lake Nakuru is also one of the very few places in Africa where you can see the white rhino and the rare Rothschild’s giraffe. You’ll drive back to Loldia House for dinner and an overnight stay.
Day 6, 7 & 8: Fly to the Mara for three nights at Governors’ Camp
After breakfast, you’ll transfer to Loldia airstrip to board a Governors Aviation flight to the Mara, a short hop that offers wonderful views over the fertile landscape below. You’ll be met on arrival and spend the next three days at Governors’ Camp, the spot once reserved exclusively for Kenya’s colonial governors and, since 1972, the first permanent luxury tented camp anywhere in Kenya.
The Maasai Mara is Kenya’s finest and most outstanding wildlife sanctuary, its gentle, rolling grassland ensuring the animals are rarely out of sight. The climate here is mild, rarely too hot, with rainfall spread evenly across the year, and the sensation of the Great Migration between July and October remains unparalleled anywhere on the continent. The wildlife is far from confined within the reserve’s boundaries, with an even larger ecosystem extending well beyond it, and centuries of close association between the Maasai people and the wildlife around them has produced an almost symbiotic relationship between the two.
After lunch at camp on your first day, you’ll head out on a late evening “spice” game drive to explore the reserve. No matter how much you have imagined Africa beforehand, the Mara tends to exceed it: the Big Five, lion, elephant, leopard, rhino, and Cape buffalo, are all here in genuine abundance.
Day 9: Journey’s End: Fly to Nairobi
After breakfast, you’ll transfer to the airstrip for a scheduled flight back to Wilson Airport. Depending on your onward departure time, a final transfer carries you to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, marking the end of your safari.
This itinerary is a starting point. Every Trevaron journey is shaped around you. Speak to our safari designers to tailor the camps, timing, and details of your own Kenya wildlife and lakes safari.
Every Trevaron safari is shaped around you. Tell us what you’re dreaming of and our safari designers will tailor every detail around your pace, your group, and the moments that matter most.
