10-Day Masai Mara Safari & Zanzibar Beach

Day 1 · Nairobi

Karen, Below the Ngong Hills

Drive · Jomo Kenyatta International Airport → Karen, Nairobi · about 45–90 minutes, traffic permitting

You are met at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and driven to Karen, the green, low-rise suburb beneath the Ngong Hills that takes its name from the Danish writer Karen Blixen; depending on traffic the drive can take 45 minutes or well over an hour. Your hotel is a calm garden setting close to Wilson Airport, where tomorrow’s flight leaves. If you land early, the public visiting hour at an orphanage for young elephants, or a giraffe conservation center, makes a gentle first outing. Before leaving home, check that your Kenya eTA is approved and your yellow fever certificate is packed, as Zanzibar will ask for it.

• Private meet and transfer from the airport
• Optional elephant orphanage or giraffe center visit
• Early dinner in the garden

Overnight

Nairobi · Karen

Meals

Dinner

Day 2 · Masai Mara

Up and Over to the Mara

Flight · Wilson Airport, Nairobi → Mara conservancy airstrip · about 45–60 minutes — Pack soft bags: about 15 kg per person, hand luggage included.

Wilson Airport is Nairobi’s light-aircraft hub, with each airline checking in from its own small building, and the flight west over the Rift Valley takes about 45–60 minutes, sometimes with a stop at another airstrip first. Your guide meets the plane. Your camp stands on a private conservancy bordering the national reserve, on land leased from Maasai families who earn income from every guest night, and camps here agree to cap the number of vehicles at any sighting. After lunch and a rest, the afternoon drive introduces rolling grassland, wooded gullies and, with luck, the first lions of the trip.

• Light-aircraft flight from Wilson Airport
• Afternoon game drive on the conservancy
• Sundowners on a ridge

Overnight

Masai Mara conservancy

Meals

Breakfast, lunch & dinner

Day 3–4 · Masai Mara

On Foot and After Dark

Conservancy land allows what the national reserve does not. Mornings might begin on foot with a Maasai guide, reading tracks, dung and the alarm calls of birds, before a late breakfast in camp. Drives follow the resident prides and the cheetahs that hunt the open plains, and within the conservancy’s rules your guide can often leave the track to position you well. After dinner, a night drive with a red-filtered spotlight looks for animals rarely met by day: springhares, genets, bush babies and, on a good night, an aardvark or a leopard. The Mara conservancies page compares them in detail.

• Guided walk with a Maasai guide
• Morning and afternoon game drives
• Night drive where conservancy rules allow
• Sundowners and bush meals

Overnight

Masai Mara conservancy

Meals

Breakfast, lunch & dinner

Day 5 · Masai Mara

A Day in the Reserve, or One More on the Conservancy

From about July to October, depending on the rains, the wildebeest and zebra herds are usually in the Mara, and most river crossings happen inside the national reserve and the Mara Triangle rather than on conservancy land. In those months we suggest a full day in the reserve, leaving early with a picnic and settling in near a crossing point to wait, which can mean hours of patience and no certainty of a crossing. Outside migration season, stay on the conservancy for another walk and a slower day; the resident lions, elephants and topi are here all year.

• Optional full day in the national reserve with a picnic
• Patient river watch in crossing season
• Or a further conservancy walk and drives

Overnight

Masai Mara conservancy

Meals

Breakfast, lunch & dinner

Day 7 · Kendwa

Old Town at Dawn, Beach by Lunch

Drive · Stone Town → North coast (Kendwa or Nungwi) · about 1 hour

After the bush, Stone Town is a jolt of a different kind: calls to prayer, bicycle bells and the smell of cardamom coffee. Your guide walks you through the lanes early, before the heat, past the Old Fort, the carved doors and Darajani market, with time at the slave-market memorial beside Christ Church Cathedral. Zanzibar is almost entirely Muslim, so shoulders and knees stay covered in town. By late morning you are on the road north, about an hour, reaching the west-facing coast at Kendwa for lunch and an afternoon in water that stays deep close to the shore.

• Guided early walk through Stone Town
• Private drive to the north coast
• Afternoon swim and a west-facing sunset

Overnight

North coast · Nungwi & Kendwa

Meals

Breakfast & dinner

Day 8–9 · Kendwa

Barefoot After the Bush

Two days with no wake-up calls, which after five dawn starts feels like its own reward. Swim whenever you like; the north coast stays deep enough for it through most of the tide cycle. If you want some structure, a sunset dhow from Kendwa, a snorkel trip to the Mnemba reef or Tumbatu, or a dive with one of the coast’s dive centers can be added. Otherwise, a spa treatment, a long lunch of grilled fish and an early night are exactly right. Nungwi, a short hop up the coast, is livelier if you want company in the evening.

• Swimming at most states of the tide
• Optional sunset dhow, snorkel or dive trip
• Spa time or a hammock
• An evening in Nungwi if you want company

Overnight

North coast · Nungwi & Kendwa

Meals

Breakfast & dinner

Day 10 · Zanzibar Airport (ZNZ)

Departure from Zanzibar

Drive · North coast → Zanzibar airport · about 1 hour 20 minutes

Take a last swim, then the transfer south to the airport, about 1 hour 20 minutes from Kendwa. Zanzibar’s one-stop connections to the US run through hubs such as Doha, Istanbul, Addis Ababa, Amsterdam, Paris and Nairobi, and many leave in the evening. If yours does, a late check-out or day room keeps the afternoon easy, or you can stop in Stone Town on the way for lunch and one more look at the harbor. Ten days on, the Mara’s grassland and the island’s turquoise shallows make an unlikely but very satisfying pair of memories.

• Final swim and breakfast
• Optional lunch stop in Stone Town
• Private transfer to Zanzibar airport

Meals

Breakfast