17-Day Kenya–Tanzania Expedition: The Great Plains Chronicle

Welcome to East Africa. Your driver-guide meets you at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and drives you to your hotel in Nairobi, Kenya's lively capital and the traditional starting point of the great safaris.

If you land early, there is time to visit the elephant orphanage or the Giraffe Centre on the city's edge (optional). Otherwise settle in, enjoy dinner and an early night, with a short briefing on the route through Kenya and Tanzania that awaits you.

Leave Nairobi after breakfast and descend into the Great Rift Valley, pausing at a viewpoint over its floor and the extinct volcanoes of Longonot and Suswa. Lake Naivasha, a freshwater lake about 95 km from Nairobi, is reached in under two hours.

In the afternoon take a boat ride on the lake among hippos and fish eagles, followed by a guided walking safari on Crescent Island, where giraffes, zebras, wildebeests and waterbucks graze in the open with no large predators. It is a gentle, rewarding start to the safari.

A short drive of about 1.5 hours takes you north to Lake Nakuru National Park. Spend the day on game drives in this compact Rift Valley park, one of Kenya's most important sanctuaries for both black and white rhinos.

Rothschild's giraffes, buffaloes, lions and leopards live among the yellow fever-tree forests and grasslands, while the soda lake attracts flamingos and pelicans in season. Picnic lunch in the park and enjoy the view from Baboon Cliff before heading to your lodge.

After breakfast drive south-west via Narok to the Masai Mara National Reserve, about 5 hours. The landscape opens up into the rolling grasslands of Maasai country as you approach the reserve.

After lunch at your camp, enjoy an afternoon game drive and your first encounters with the Mara's lions, elephants, giraffes and vast herds of plains game.

A full day in the Masai Mara, with a picnic lunch so you can follow the wildlife wherever it leads. The Mara is renowned for its big cats, and your guide knows the territories of the resident lion prides, cheetahs and leopards. Elephants, buffaloes, giraffes, hyenas and huge herds of plains game complete the picture.

Between July and October the Great Wildebeest Migration fills the reserve, and you may head to the Mara River in the hope of witnessing a dramatic crossing as the herds plunge past waiting crocodiles. At other times of year the resident wildlife is superb in its own right. An early-morning hot-air balloon flight or a visit to a Maasai village can be arranged as optional extras.

Another day in the Mara gives you time to look more closely: to sit with a cheetah family, watch vultures circle over a kill, or track a leopard through the riverine thickets. Your guide adjusts the plan to the movements of the animals and the season.

You may choose an early start with breakfast packed for the plains, or join an optional morning hot-air balloon flight followed by a bush breakfast. An optional afternoon visit to a Maasai village offers a warm insight into the traditional life, dances and homes of the Maasai people.

Enjoy a final early-morning game drive in the Masai Mara before breakfast, when the plains are cool and the predators are still active. Afterwards you pack up and drive back to Nairobi via Narok and the Great Rift Valley, arriving in the late afternoon.

The evening is free in Nairobi. Take a quiet dinner at your hotel and rest ahead of tomorrow's journey south towards Kilimanjaro.

Today you head south towards the Tanzanian border and Amboseli National Park. The road crosses open Maasai rangelands, and if the morning is clear the great dome of Kilimanjaro rises ahead of you as you approach. Allow 4–5 hours for the drive.

Check in, enjoy lunch, and set out in the afternoon to explore the park's swamps and plains, where elephants, buffaloes, wildebeests, zebras and countless water birds gather around the spring-fed marshes.

After an early-morning game drive and breakfast, leave Amboseli and drive to the border town of Namanga, about 1.5–2 hours away. Here you complete Kenyan exit and Tanzanian entry formalities at the one-stop border post, and meet your Tanzanian guide and 4x4 safari vehicle.

The road continues south for about two hours past Longido and the slopes of Mount Meru to Arusha, the safari capital of northern Tanzania. You arrive in the afternoon with time to relax at your lodge, surrounded by gardens and coffee farms, before dinner.

After breakfast you drive about two hours south-west from Arusha to Tarangire National Park, arriving in time for a morning game drive. Tarangire is famous for its great herds of elephants, which gather along the Tarangire River in the dry season, and for its giant baobab trees, some many centuries old.

After a picnic or hot lunch, continue exploring the river valley and the swamps, looking for lions, leopards, buffaloes, giraffes, zebras and some of the park's more than 500 bird species. In the late afternoon you head to your lodge in the Tarangire area for dinner and the sounds of the African night.

An early start today for the long, spectacular journey to the Serengeti. You climb up into the cool Ngorongoro highlands, pausing at the viewpoint over the crater, then descend through Maasai grazing lands towards the endless plains. There is the option of a stop at Olduvai Gorge, one of the world's most important sites for the study of human origins.

You enter Serengeti National Park at Naabi Hill Gate and game drive towards Seronera in the heart of the park, where rivers and kopjes support lions, leopards and cheetahs year-round. You arrive at your lodge in the Central Serengeti in time for dinner, with a picnic lunch along the way.

A full day of game drives in the Seronera area of the Central Serengeti, with a picnic lunch out on the plains. The Seronera River valley is one of the best places in Africa for big cats: lions lounge on the granite kopjes, leopards rest in the sausage trees along the river and cheetahs scan the short-grass plains for gazelles.

Depending on the season, the Great Migration may be passing nearby, with hundreds of thousands of wildebeests and zebras moving across the plains. Hippo pools, elephants, giraffes, buffaloes and topi complete a memorable day. An optional sunrise hot-air balloon safari can be arranged.

After a morning game drive across the Serengeti plains, you leave the park through Naabi Hill Gate and drive back up into the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, with the option of stopping at Olduvai Gorge on the way.

In the afternoon you reach the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater, around 2,300 m above sea level. The air is cool and the views down into the caldera are breathtaking. Enjoy a quiet evening at your lodge on the rim, where it can be chilly after dark, so bring a warm layer.

Descend early into the Ngorongoro Crater, the world's largest unbroken volcanic caldera and one of the finest wildlife areas on earth. About 600 m below the rim, the crater floor is home to lions, elephants, buffaloes, hyenas, zebras, wildebeests and flamingos on Lake Magadi, and it is one of the best places in Tanzania to see the endangered black rhino.

After a picnic lunch by the hippo pool, you ascend the crater wall and drive to the Lake Manyara airstrip for your light-aircraft flight to Zanzibar. On arrival you are transferred to your hotel in Stone Town, where the call to prayer and the smell of spices drift through the evening air.

Explore Stone Town with a local guide this morning: the carved doors and narrow lanes of this UNESCO World Heritage Site, the old fort, the former slave market and cathedral, and the colourful Darajani market. Pause at the Forodhani Gardens on the seafront, famous for its evening street-food stalls.

After lunch you drive about an hour north to Nungwi on Zanzibar's northern tip and check in to your beach hotel in time for sunset.

Another day at leisure in Nungwi to rest and enjoy the Indian Ocean. Your hotel staff can help you arrange optional excursions such as a spice farm tour, a snorkelling trip, diving or a visit to Kendwa beach nearby.

Or simply do nothing at all: swim, read under the palms and watch the fishing dhows sail home in the late afternoon. It is the perfect, easy end to a long safari.

Enjoy a final breakfast overlooking the ocean and some last hours on the beach. At the appropriate time you are transferred, about an hour, to Abeid Amani Karume International Airport in Zanzibar for your flight home or onward journey.

Kwaheri and safari njema, from all of us at Gip Adventure.