This 7-day luxury Kenya fly-in safari spends three nights in Samburu and three in the Masai Mara, the two wildlife areas that feel least alike in the whole country. A light aircraft lifts you out of Nairobi on the first morning, and from then on the days belong to the bush: no long road transfers, no rushing, and the same guide, Dexter Kariuki, on every game drive.
Samburu comes first. It is dry, red-earthed country cut by the Ewaso Ng’iro river, where elephants come down to drink in the heat of the day and the “Special Five” (Grevy’s zebra, reticulated giraffe, Beisa oryx, gerenuk and Somali ostrich) live nowhere else on a typical Kenya circuit. Then the plane carries you south-west to the Mara’s open grass, where lion, leopard and cheetah hunt year-round and, from around July to October, the great migration pours in from Tanzania.
Three nights in each place is the point. It gives Dexter room to wait at a sighting rather than move on, to head out before first light when the cats are still active, and to read the week as it unfolds instead of following a fixed script.
Dexter meets you in Nairobi and you take to the air, watching the farmland give way to Mount Kenya’s flanks and then the dry, open north. By lunch you’re in camp above the Ewaso Ng’iro; by late afternoon you’re out on the first drive, elephants crossing the river in the low light.
Two full days to search out the animals the south doesn’t have: Grevy’s zebra, reticulated giraffe, Beisa oryx, gerenuk standing on their hind legs to feed. Early starts for the cats along the river, long lunches in camp through the heat, and sundowners on a rocky rise as the hills turn red.
A morning drive, then the light aircraft south-west over the Rift Valley to the Masai Mara. The change is dramatic: rolling grassland to the horizon. An afternoon drive to get your bearings and, in season, the first sight of the herds.
Full days built around what the Mara is doing that week: big cats on the hunt, the river crossings from around July to October, a picnic breakfast out on the plains. With three nights here, Dexter can wait for the moment rather than chase the next sighting.
A final dawn drive while the plains are still cool, then the short flight back to Nairobi in time for evening international departures.
14 days Samburu's wild north and the Masai Mara's big-cat plains with Dexter, then six barefoot nights on Diani's white sand. A slow, two-week Kenya safari and beach holiday with no rushing anywhere.
15 days Kenya's three great safari landscapes, from Samburu's arid north to the Mara's plains and Amboseli's elephants under Kilimanjaro, then four slow days on the Swahili island of Lamu. The definitive fly-in.
Tell Dexter your dates and he'll tell you honestly what Samburu and the Mara will be doing that week.
It's in Nairobi Dexter replies usually within a day