Classic Kenya Grand Circuit
The journey, one day at a time
Arrive in Nairobi
Arrive in Arrival · Nairobi, met and transferred to your accommodation.
Up into the Aberdares
Drive to Aberdare to the Aberdare highlands — misty forest, waterfalls and moorland above the Rift — and a tree-lodge night watching a floodlit waterhole.
Forest and moorland
A day in the high forest — elephant and buffalo at the salt licks, colobus overhead, and an outside chance at the rare bongo and giant forest hog.
To the foot of Mount Kenya
Drive to Mount Kenya to the forested foothills of Mount Kenya, the country's namesake peak, and settle into a lodge with the mountain filling the skyline. Foothill drives or walks with elephant and buffalo in the woodland, the snow-capped summit above, and a rhino sanctuary or trout stream within reach.
Around the mountain
Foothill drives or walks with elephant and buffalo in the woodland, the snow-capped summit above, and a rhino sanctuary or trout stream within reach.
Onto the conservancy
Drive to Ol Pejeta to Ol Pejeta and drive its grasslands — home to the last northern white rhinos and a dense cast of predators.
Rhino and chimps
A full day on the conservancy — black rhino, big cats and the chimpanzee sanctuary — with walking and night drives on offer.
Into the Mara
Drive to Mara into the Maasai Mara and head out on a first game drive as the light softens — plains game, elephant and the first cats on the way to camp.
Full day on the plains
Morning and afternoon drives with a Maasai guide, routed by where the predators are moving, with the long midday hours to rest at camp.
Deeper into the reserve
A full day further afield — river lines, kopjes and open grassland — with a picnic lunch out in the bush.
Dawn from the air
Lift off over the waking plains and land to a bush breakfast, then an afternoon drive once the heat eases.
Arrive in Nairobi
Arrive in Nairobi, met and transferred to your accommodation. Nairobi National Park is the city's one true wonder: a genuine wildlife reserve — lions, rhino, giraffe, hundreds of bird species — with skyscrapers and passing planes as the backdrop. You can be on a real game drive within twenty minutes of a downtown hotel. It's not the Mara, and it's fenced on the city side, but as a first taste of African wildlife on a jet-lagged arrival day, nothing else comes close.
Journey's end
Transfer to the airport for your onward flight home.
The season changes what you see.
The migration window
The wildebeest are in the Mara and the river crossings are on — the headline months, and the busiest. Book well ahead.
Resident game, green plains
The Big Five never leave. Fewer vehicles, lower rates, newborns in the grass and clean light for photography.
Where this journey goes
Hand-picked camps & lodges
The Ark
A lodge shaped like a ship, overlooking a floodlit waterhole and salt lick alive with forest game after dark.
Ilora Retreats
An intimate, design-led tented retreat in the heart of the Mara, built around quiet luxury and private guiding.
Angama Mara
Glass-fronted suites suspended on the Oloololo Escarpment, with one of the most cinematic views in Africa.
Mara Plains Camp
A tiny, conservation-driven Great Plains camp in the Olare Motorogi Conservancy — copper, canvas and real exclusivity.
Mahali Mzuri
Richard Branson's striking twelve-tent camp in Olare Motorogi, with low vehicle numbers and big-cat country at the door.
Cottar’s 1920s
Vintage safari romance on a private conservancy, run by one of Kenya's oldest safari families.
Make it yours.
Add nights, swap a park, extend to the coast — this route is a starting point, not a fixed menu. Tell us how you travel and we'll route the rest.