5 Days Maasai Mara, Lake Nakuru & Lake Naivasha Budget Camping Safari

Overview

Highlights

• ✦Lake Nakuru rhinos and flamingos
• ✦Lake Naivasha boat ride among hippos
• ✦Two full Maasai Mara days
• ✦Real public-campsite experience
• ✦Fresh hot meals cooked by dedicated camp chef
• ✦Small group (maximum 6 guests)
• ✦KPSGA-certified driver-guide
• ✦Best-value 5-day Kenya safari

Day-by-day itinerary

1. 1

   Nairobi → Lake Nakuru (camping)

   Nairobi → Lake Nakuru

   After breakfast at your Nairobi hotel, your professional driver-guide collects you in a private 4x4 Land Cruiser around 8am for the scenic three-hour drive northwest, descending the dramatic escarpment that drops 600 meters into the Great Rift Valley. You stop at the Rift Valley viewpoint to photograph the Aberdares and the perfect cone of Mount Longonot before continuing to Lake Nakuru National Park — Kenya's bird-watching capital and a thriving rhino sanctuary. After lunch at your lodge, you embark on your first afternoon game drive in search of the rare white rhino, Rothschild's giraffe, defassa waterbuck and the enormous flocks of greater and lesser flamingos that turn the lake's edge a vivid pink. Sunset over Baboon Cliff is unforgettable. Return to the lodge for dinner and overnight, ears tuned to the night calls of the African bush.

   Meals: L, D · Stay: Punda Milias Campsite or similar (twin tents)

2. 2

   Lake Nakuru → Lake Naivasha

   Lake Nakuru → Lake Naivasha

   An early breakfast precedes a long morning game drive when Nakuru's lions are most active — track them through acacia woodland and along the salt-encrusted shore where flamingos lift in pink waves. Around midday you check out and drive ninety minutes south to Lake Naivasha, the freshwater jewel of the Rift Valley. After lunch at your lakeside lodge, board a small motorboat for a 90-minute cruise: glide past pods of yawning hippos, get within camera range of African fish eagles diving for tilapia, and watch giraffes and zebras grazing the papyrus shoreline. An optional afternoon walk on Crescent Island sanctuary lets you stroll among free-roaming wildebeest, eland and giraffe — there are no predators on the island. Dinner and overnight at your Lake Naivasha lodge under a sky thick with stars.

   Meals: B, L, D · Stay: Carnellys Camp Naivasha or similar

3. 3

   Lake Naivasha → Maasai Mara

   Lake Naivasha → Maasai Mara

   Depart Lake Naivasha after breakfast for the five-hour drive south through Narok and Maasai country to the Maasai Mara National Reserve — 1,510 square kilometres of golden savanna pressed against Tanzania's Serengeti. Lunch is served at your safari lodge inside or adjacent to the reserve. By 4pm you are back in the Land Cruiser for your first Mara game drive, when the savanna's prides emerge from rest. Lions sprawl on rock outcrops, cheetahs scan the plains for Thomson's gazelle, and elephant herds crest the horizon in gold dust. From July to October the wildebeest migration thunders across these plains — over 1.5 million animals in the world's last great mammal migration. Dinner around the campfire and overnight at your Mara camp or lodge, the night air rich with the smell of woodsmoke and wild sage.

   Meals: B, L, D · Stay: Riverside Camp Mara or similar

4. 4

   Maasai Mara — Full day game drives

   Maasai Mara National Reserve

   Today belongs to the Mara. After early coffee, head out at 6am for the dawn game drive when the big cats are still hunting — the diamond hours when leopards descend from sausage trees and lions finish their kills. You return to the lodge around 10am for a full breakfast and a few hours of leisure: swimming pool, spa treatment, a lazy verandah read or laundry turnaround. After lunch, set out again at 4pm for the golden-hour drive. Between July and October your guide will track radio reports of wildebeest crossings at the Mara River, where Nile crocodiles wait — one of the most dramatic wildlife spectacles on Earth. An optional sunrise hot-air balloon safari can be arranged at $450 per person, ending with a champagne bush breakfast cooked beside your landing site. Dinner and overnight at the lodge.

   Meals: B, L, D · Stay: Same as Day 3

5. 5

   Maasai Mara → Nairobi

   Maasai Mara → Nairobi

   Breakfast and a final short Mara game drive en route out of the reserve — last chances for cheetah cubs, hippo pods and elephant herds at the river. Around 10am you begin the drive back to Nairobi, stopping at a roadside curio market where Maasai women sell beaded jewellery, hand-carved soapstone and wood. A hot lunch is served at a highland restaurant overlooking the Rift Valley before the final stretch through tea-country green to the city. You arrive in Nairobi between 4pm and 5pm. We can drop you at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for international flights, transfer you to Wilson Airport for a Mombasa or Zanzibar coastal extension, or back at your Nairobi hotel. End of safari — but very much, we hope, the start of a lifelong love of East Africa.

   Meals: B, L · Stay: N/A (departure)

What to bring

• • Lightweight neutral-color clothing (khaki, olive, beige)
• • Warm fleece for cool early morning game drives
• • Sun hat and sunglasses with UV protection
• • High-SPF sunscreen and lip balm
• • Insect repellent (DEET)
• • Comfortable walking shoes and sandals
• • Swimsuit for lodge pools
• • Binoculars (8x42 ideal for safari)
• • Camera with telephoto lens (200mm or longer)
• • Spare batteries, memory cards, power bank
• • Refillable water bottle
• • Small daypack
• • Anti-malarial prophylaxis (consult your doctor)
• • Copies of passport and travel insurance
• • Headlamp or torch with spare batteries
• • Sleeping bag liner (optional)
• • Earplugs

Frequently asked questions