Kenya & Tanzania Safari Explorer

This morning, your tour begins with a 7 am departure from your Nairobi accommodation, heading for Lake Nakuru National Park, regarded by birdwatchers as one of the world's great ornithological spectacles.

You arrive by mid-morning and go straight into a game drive en route to your accommodation, where lunch is served on arrival. In the afternoon, a further game drive is followed by a walk along the lake shores, bringing you close to much of the park's wildlife, including its resident rhinos and Rothschild giraffes.

After breakfast, you cross the floor of the Great Rift Valley, the longest rift in the earth's crust, on your way to the Masai Mara, an unspoiled savannah and the northern reach of the same ecosystem as the Serengeti across the border in Tanzania. The reserve is home to the big five, lion, buffalo, rhino, leopard and elephant, along with cheetah, zebra, giraffe and large herds of plains antelope.

Lunch is taken at your accommodation, with time afterwards to relax, perhaps with a dip in the pool, before you set out with your guide for an afternoon game drive of around eight hours in search of the big five. As the sun begins to dip towards the horizon, the light makes for some of the best photography of the Mara's rolling plains

Today, you have the option of joining an early hot air balloon safari over the Mara, at an additional cost, before the day's game drive gets underway.

At 7:30 am, a full-day game drive of around eight hours sets out towards the Mara River, the site of the great wildebeest migration. A picnic lunch is taken in the park at 1 pm, and the game drive continues until you return to your accommodation at around 4 pm.

In the evening, a visit to a Masai village gives you an hour to learn more about local Maasai culture, before dinner and free time at your accommodation.

After breakfast, you enjoy a final game drive in the Masai Mara before heading for the Kenya-Tanzania border at Isebania, where you change vehicles once immigration formalities are complete.

In the afternoon, you continue to Serengeti National Park, widely regarded as one of the most impressive wildlife sanctuaries in the world. Game drives through its northern corridors bring you close to the great migration as it prepares to cross the Mara River into the Masai Mara. The vast plains here are home to enormous herds of wildebeest and zebra during the migration, along with lion, leopard, cheetah, impala, buffalo, birdlife and up to ten thousand elephants.

Today, you have the option of joining an early hot air balloon safari over the Serengeti, at an additional cost, before the day's game drives begin.

Morning and evening game drives take you through the western and northern corridors of the Serengeti, where the great migration gathers ahead of its journey north to cross the Mara River back into the Masai Mara. The plains continue to reveal lion, leopard, cheetah, impala, buffalo, birdlife and thousands of elephants alongside the migrating herds.

In the morning, you descend into the Ngorongoro Crater, the largest unbroken caldera in the world and a haven for wildlife, enclosed by steep walls rising 610 metres from the crater floor. Across its vast grasslands, the 100-square-mile floor is dotted with watering holes and shelters almost 30,000 animals within an area naturally enclosed by the volcano's slopes, including the big five, lion, elephant, buffalo, rhino and leopard among others.

A picnic lunch is enjoyed in the crater, considered one of the natural wonders of the world, where the permanent availability of grass and water supports spectacular animal life throughout the year.

After breakfast, you depart for Lake Manyara National Park for a full day of game drives, with a picnic lunch served in the park. Set at the base of the Great Rift Valley escarpment, Lake Manyara is one of the most beautiful places in Africa, its lush ground water forest giving way to woodland, grassland and swamps around the soda lake itself.

The park's forest shelters troops of baboons and blue monkeys, while over 350 species of birds, including flamingo, pelican, sacred ibis, grebe and stork, gather around the lake. At the southern end of the park, hot sulphur springs known as Maji Moto are a further feature. Manyara is also noted for its buffalo, elephant, giraffe, impala and hippo, as well as its elusive tree-climbing lions.

In the morning, you head out with your guide for Tarangire, Tanzania's third largest national park and sanctuary to an unusually large elephant population. Majestic baobab trees are a feature throughout the park, dwarfing the animals that feed beneath them, while wildlife concentrates along the Tarangire River, the only permanent water source in the area. Lion, leopard, cheetah and up to six thousand elephants can be found here.

The day also includes a bush walk and a cultural visit with the area's semi-nomadic tribes.

After breakfast at your accommodation, a morning game drive continues through Tarangire National Park, one of the best national parks in Tanzania for large herds of elephant and buffalo and a strong concentration of big cats. The park is also home to African wild dog, kudu, oryx and gerenuk, species rarely found elsewhere in the northern circuit, and more than 550 bird species are drawn to its swamps.

Lunch is included before you are driven back to Arusha.Please note: Depending on your onward travel arrangements, drop-off is at your accommodation in Arusha or at Kilimanjaro Airport.