A carefully paced 6-day route through Maasai Mara, Lake Nakuru and Amboseli, using exceptional lodges chosen for their positions, food and guiding. 5 nights on safari, priced on request.
Maasai Mara - Lake Nakuru - Amboseli
About this safari
The route opens in Maasai Mara — big cats, open plains and the northern stage of the Great Migration — and works through 2 further destinations over 6 days. It stays within Kenya; the final proposal will confirm transfer times and the balance between travel and game viewing. Accommodation is at the luxury standard: premium camps and lodges where the accommodation is part of the experience. At this level the camps are as much a reason to travel as the wildlife: limited suites, exceptional food, private decks and guiding of a standard that changes what you see. Like every safari in this catalogue, it is priced on request rather than sold at a published rate, because park fees, permits, group size and available accommodation all change the figure.
Day by day
Written out in full before you book, so you can see exactly how the days are paced and where each night is spent.
Day 1
This planning outline starts in Nairobi and continues towards the first destination; the collection point, time and transport are confirmed in the final proposal. The drive to the Mara is part of the experience rather than a transfer to be endured. You cross the Rift escarpment, pass through market towns where the day's business spills onto the roadside, and then watch the landscape empty out into grassland. By the time the plains open up properly, wildlife is already visible from the vehicle and the pace of the trip has changed. A full day here usually divides itself naturally. The first hours go to the predators, tracking the prides your guide knows by territory and following whatever the night has left behind. Through the middle of the day the vehicle heads for shade near the river, where hippo crowd the deeper pools and crocodile lie out on the banks. The last light brings the plains alive again, with hunting cats moving and dust rising gold behind the herds. The catalogue suggests a premium camp or lodge here. The exact property, suite and services remain subject to availability and quotation.
Overnight: Maasai Mara
Day 2
Beyond the big cats, the reserve holds an extraordinary supporting cast. Bat-eared fox and black-backed jackal work the short grass, secretary birds stalk through it hunting snakes, and ground hornbill move in slow procession. Your guide will stop for these as readily as for lion, and they are often what people remember once the trip is over. Today is given over to the reserve, and how it unfolds depends on what your guide finds. Radio traffic between vehicles helps, but the best mornings often come from reading tracks and working a hunch. Lion are the most reliably seen of the big cats here; cheetah favour the open ground where they can use speed; and leopard, though present in good numbers along the watercourses, still ask for patience and a bit of luck. A luxury stay is proposed for this night, with the final property and arrangements confirmed in writing.
Overnight: Maasai Mara
Day 3
The route then continues onward, leaving the grasslands behind, the day's driving heads for the Rift Valley floor and the compact park that surrounds Lake Nakuru. It is a shorter transfer than most on a Kenyan circuit, which leaves useful time for an afternoon game drive before the light goes — and the afternoon is when rhino most often move out onto the open lakeside flats. A morning here has a different character from the open savannah parks — tighter, greener, more enclosed. Your guide will work the lakeside tracks first while rhino are still out grazing, then climb through the woodland where colobus move in the canopy and the view opens out over the whole basin from the cliff viewpoints. This outline assumes the catalogue's premium standard. The exact camp or lodge is proposed and confirmed during quotation.
Overnight: Lake Nakuru
Day 4
This travel day carries the route onward, the road south from Nairobi runs towards the Tanzanian border through increasingly dry country, and the last stretch across the Amboseli plains is dust-coloured and almost treeless. Then the landscape does something unexpected: out of that parched ground rise permanent green swamps, fed by meltwater filtering underground from Kilimanjaro, and elephants are standing in them. The birdlife around the swamps is easy to underestimate — pelican, crowned crane, African spoonbill, sacred ibis and large numbers of waders work the shallows, and raptors hunt the open ground. Between elephant sightings there is always something on the water, and the contrast of a green marsh set into grey dust is part of what makes the park photograph so well. The suggested standard is luxury. Citrus will identify the available property and contracted services before confirmation.
Overnight: Amboseli
Day 5
The open, almost treeless terrain gives Amboseli long sightlines and makes it one of the best photographic parks in Kenya. Morning drives work the swamp edges where elephant, buffalo and hippo gather, while the dry lake bed shimmers and distorts in the heat further out. If the cloud lifts off Kilimanjaro — most likely in the first and last hour of daylight — the mountain dominates everything. Time in Amboseli is best spent at the edges of the day. The middle hours bring heat, glare and fine volcanic dust; the first and last hours bring low gold light, active animals and the best chance of a clear mountain. Your guide will plan around that, heading out early, returning to rest through the worst of the heat, and going out again as the light softens. The catalogue suggests a premium camp or lodge here. The exact property, suite and services remain subject to availability and quotation.
Overnight: Amboseli
Day 6
This outline leaves the final morning available for the confirmed transfer plan. A last early drive gives you a final chance at a clear view of Kilimanjaro, which more often than not is at its best just after sunrise, before cloud builds over the summit through the morning. The swamps are busy at that hour, with elephant feeding belly-deep and pelican working the shallows, and the light on the dry flats is the best of the day. Nairobi is the working end point, with the final transfer stated in the written proposal.
Safari ends
Where you stay
Premium safari lodges and tented camps are matched to the route and your dates. The exact properties are proposed and confirmed in your written quotation.
Recommended standard by stop
Maasai Mara: Premium safari lodge or tented camp · Lake Nakuru: Premium safari lodge or tented camp · Amboseli: Premium safari lodge or tented camp
Your written quotation will allocate the nights and confirm each available property before booking.
These are planning examples, not confirmed inclusions for this package. Your written quotation will confirm exactly what is included.
The quotation will identify every separate cost before you confirm.
Before you ask
The catalogue sets the route and travel standard, but it does not publish a fixed price or a contracted inclusion list. Citrus will prepare a written quotation for your dates, party and rooming, showing the exact transfers, activities, accommodation, meals, fees and permits before you confirm.
No. Accommodation is proposed for your dates and confirmed in the written quotation before a booking is made. Where an approved budget property is named, it remains subject to availability and written confirmation.
No. Cloud and weather can obscure the mountain even when a route is timed well.
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