9 Days Kenya & Tanzania Safari –Serengeti, Masai Mara & More

9 Days Kenya & Tanzania Safari – Tarangire, Ngorongoro, Serengeti, Masai Mara and Lake Nakuru

Itinerary Overview

Eight days, two countries, five legendary parks. You’ll start in Tanzania’s baobab-studded Tarangire, roll up the ancient walls of Ngorongoro, race across the Serengeti’s endless grass ocean, slip over the border into Kenya’s predator-ruled Masai Mara, and finish beside the flamingo-pink shores of Lake Nakuru.

Every sunrise rewrites the script: thundering elephant herds, big-cat chases, rhino silhouettes at dusk. One compact adventure, a lifetime’s worth of camp-fire stories.

Summary Itinerary

• Arusha → Tarangire – Afternoon game drive
• Tarangire → Ngorongoro – Evening crater-rim sundowner
• Full-day game drive in Ngorongoro Crater
• Ngorongoro → Central Serengeti – Sunset on the plains
• Full-day game drive in Serengeti
• Serengeti → Masai Mara (via Isebania) – Evening game drive
• Full-day game drive in Masai Mara
• Masai Mara → Lake Nakuru – Rhino tracking
• Departure to Nairobi

Detailed Itinerary

Day 1: Tarangire: Giants among the Baobabs

After your pick up form the airport or hotel accommodation in Arusha, you hit the dusty road from Arusha just after breakfast; watch city streets dissolve into acacia-speckled savanna.

By lunch you’re winding between Tarangire’s elephant highways—riverbanks stomped flat by some of Africa’s largest herds.

Afternoon light turns when you are already in the Tarangire observing the giant baobabs bronze while lanky giraffes nibble the topmost shoots and lions laze in the grass, tails flicking at flies.

Overnight: Inside Tarangire

• Camping: Tarangire Public Campsite
• Budget: Whistling Thorn Tented Camp
• Standard: Sangaiwe Tented Lodge
• Luxury: Tarangire Treetops

Day 2 | Tarangire To Ngorongoro: The Crater Rim Chorus

Early morning, wake up and embark on a game drive as you enjoy the last elephant send-off before you climb the Rift Valley escarpment driving through the mist drifts via coffee plantations; then, suddenly, the world drops away as you see the Ngorongoro’s vast caldera laying just below.

Toast the view with a sundowner on the rim while distant buffalo dot the floor like iron filings on green velvet.

Overnight: Ngorongoro Crater Rim

• Camping: Simba A Campsite
• Budget: Ngorongoro Forest Tented Lodge
• Standard: Rhino Lodge
• Luxury: Ngorongoro Serena Safari Lodge

Day 3 | Ngorongoro Crater: Fifty Square Kilometers of Wow

Today, you shall have an early morning descend in the steep track at dawn—one minute you’re in cool cloud, the next you’re nose-to-horn with a black rhino.

Lions sprawl beside hippo-filled pools; pink flamingos stitch pink seams across Lake Magadi. Enjoy your picnic under a fever tree while zebra inch closer, hoping for crumbs.

By late afternoon you’re back on the rim, heart still drumming as you enjoy other fascinating wildlife encounters just before you climb up the crater.

Overnight: Ngorongoro Crater Rim

• Camping: Simba A Campsite
• Budget: Ngorongoro Forest Tented Lodge
• Standard: Rhino Lodge
• Luxury: Ngorongoro Serena Safari Lodge

Day 4 : Ngorongoro To the Serengeti: Where the Earth Has No End

A ribbon of dusty road leads west: Maasai herders, red shúkàs billowing, wave you onward to the boundless Serengeti. Flat-topped acacias blur into golden grass that seems to stretch forever.

As the sun bleeds low, thousands of wildebeest silhouettes drift past your 4×4 in a living river. Campfire sparks race upwards to meet the Milky Way.

Overnight: Central Serengeti

• Camping: Seronera Public Campsite
• Budget: Into Wild Africa Camp
• Standard: Serengeti Heritage Tented Camp
• Luxury: Four Seasons Serengeti

Day 5: Serengeti Full Day: Chase the Drama

Sunrise wake-up and your alarm is the guttural sawing of a distant leopard. Spend the day following dusty paw-prints—maybe a cheetah blur ends in a cloud of gazelle fur, maybe lions commandeer your track and refuse to budge.

Lunch comes out of a tiffin on your lap while 1.5 million wildebeest argue over grass. Finish with an optional balloon ride or one last cat hunt.

Alternatively, depending on the time of visit, follow the Great migration and have the most fascinating encounter as you see the thousands of wildebeest move in a rhythmic manner crossing from one part of Serengeti to the other.

Overnight: Central Serengeti

• Camping: Seronera Public Campsite
• Budget: Into Wild Africa Camp
• Standard: Serengeti Heritage Tented Camp
• Luxury: Four Seasons Serengeti

Day 6 | Across the Border: Serengeti → Masai Mara

Pack early and find your wheels roll north toward Isebania and the invisible line that splits an ecosystem in two. Formalities done as you have your passports stamped before you cross into the Kenya side, proceed with a drive on red earth—this time the Masai Mara.

Evening light catches a lone cheetah on a termite mound scanning for dinner; you roll into camp buzzing.

Overnight: Masai Mara

• Camping: Enchoro Wildlife Camp
• Budget: Mara Explorers Camp
• Standard: Zebra Plains Mara Camp
• Luxury: Sand River Masai Mara

Day 7 | Masai Mara: Big-Cat Central

Wake up early morning and proceed to encounter the golden grass rippling like wheat under a soft wind. A lioness vanishes into it, pops back out gripping breakfast.

You picnic by the Mara River while honking hippos dispute territory and crocs lurk for migrating wildebeest. Afternoon brings a visit to a Maasai village—warrior jumping contests included—before one last leopard search in the gloaming.

Overnight: Masai Mara

• Camping: Enchoro Wildlife Camp
• Budget: Mara Explorers Camp
• Standard: Zebra Plains Mara Camp
• Luxury: Sand River Masai Mara

Day 8 : Lake Nakuru & Nairobi: Flamingos 

Depart early and priceed to the Lake Nakuru. During your drive, watch the Great Rift cliffs roll past on your drive to Lake Nakuru. Here, endangered Rothschild giraffes nibble acacia buds and chunky white rhinos mow the lakeshore lawn.

Snap the final photos of flamingo mosaics, then head for Nairobi; the roaring city feels unreal after eight days of pure wild soundtrack.

Overnight: 

• Camping: Punda Milias Nakuru Camp
• Budget: Sleepway Cottages
• Standard: Lake Nakuru Lodge
• Luxury: Sarova Lion Hill Game Lodge

Day 9: Enjoy Lake Nakuru and drive to Nairobi

Today, you bid farewell to Lake Nakuru. After your early morning walking safari encounter, you shall drive heading towards Nairobi where you arrive in the early evening for your drop off at your hotel accommodation or the airport.