Great Migration, Mara & Serengeti

Arrive at Nairobi Wilson, about 45 minutes by light aircraft to the Mara airstrips and transfer privately to your base. Time today to arrive in time for an afternoon game drive and sundowners on the plains.

• Private transfer via Nairobi Wilson
• Arrive in time for an afternoon game drive and sundowners on the plains
• Time to settle in before dinner

Dawn and late-afternoon drives for lion, elephant, buffalo, cheetah and, with luck, leopard and rhino. Sightings are never guaranteed and conservancies allow off-road tracking where the national reserve does not.

• Dawn game drive
• Big cat tracking with a Maasai guide
• Sundowners on the plains

Following the herds towards the Mara river crossings, which happen roughly July to October and cannot be scheduled: you wait, sometimes for hours, and sometimes nothing crosses.

• Mara river crossing points (July-October)
• Hippo and crocodile pools
• Full-day drive with bush lunch

A dawn balloon flight over the plains with a bush breakfast on landing, and a visit to a Maasai community arranged through the conservancy rather than as a roadside stop.

• Hot-air balloon at dawn (weather permitting)
• Bush breakfast on landing
• Maasai community visit

Fly by bush plane between the Mara and Serengeti, or drive via the Ngorongoro highlands. On arrival, settle into camp and take an afternoon drive on the short-grass plains.

• Fly by bush plane between the Mara and Serengeti, or drive via the Ngorongoro highlands
• Settle into camp and take an afternoon drive on the short-grass plains
• Timings reconfirmed locally the day before

Game drives across the southern plains and the Seronera valley, where the kopjes hold leopard and lion and the river draws game year round.

• Seronera valley drives
• Kopje leopard and lion
• Sunset over the plains

The herds move in a rough annual circuit: calving on the southern short-grass plains around February, the western corridor mid-year, the north from July. Camps move with them.

• Following the herds with your guide
• Predator activity around the herds
• Bush breakfast in the field

Descending into the caldera, a 260-square-kilometre bowl with resident lion, elephant and one of East Africa's last black rhino populations. Vehicle permits are timed.

• Ngorongoro Crater floor drive
• Black rhino sightings (not guaranteed)
• Crater rim viewpoint

A final morning drive on the way to the airstrip. Private transfer to Kilimanjaro or Arusha in good time for your onward flight.

• A final morning drive on the way to the airstrip
• Late check-out arranged where the hotel allows it
• Private departure transfer