7 Day Kenya Safari Tours

Seven days is enough time for three parks at a reasonable pace. Push for four or five and you spend more of the week driving than watching animals, so we keep most weeks to three. The routes above show the combinations that work best in the time.

Where you sleep and who guides you are the two most important factors in determining the quality of the trip.

Staying in or immediately adjacent to a park boundary means you don’t have to make a long drive in and out each day, and this preserves your best game-viewing hours at dawn and dusk. Smaller properties also mean your vehicle isn’t stuck behind a convoy at every sighting. The guide is even more important than most first timers realize. A good guide is able to read the animals’ behavior, understands which trails are likely to yield sightings that day and makes the week a private expedition, not a bus tour. On every trip you’re in a private vehicle with a dedicated guide from start to finish.

The parks you’ll cover in a week

The Masai Mara is the main attraction of nearly all 7 day tours. The open grassland makes sightings easy, the big cats are resident year round and from late July to October the wildebeest migration pushes up from the Serengeti in huge numbers. Most of our weeks give the Mara two nights, so you get morning and afternoon drives on full days.

Amboseli is located in the shadow of Kilimanjaro and is the best elephant park in the country. The herds are big and accustomed to cars, and on a clear morning the mountain behind them is as good as safari scenery gets.

Lake Nakuru is small and can be done in a day. It is famous for flamingos, which vary in number according to the season. The rhino, both black and white, is more reliable and is a good stop for that sighting on a shorter circuit.

In the dry north, Samburu offers species not found further south, such as the reticulated giraffe, Grevy’s zebra and beisa oryx. It appears on our fly-in weeks and is a great addition.

If rhino is near the top of your list, then Ol Pejeta is worth adding. It has the largest black rhino population in East Africa and operates as a private conservancy, and it is reflected in the quality of the drives. Check out our Ol Pejeta rhino conservancy notes to find out what you can expect to see there.

On each 7 day trip you will find the following:

All of our 7 day safaris are private and all-inclusive: park and conservancy fees, accommodation, all meals on safari, game drives with a dedicated guide and driver, and airport transfers. We take care of all transfers between parks, you do not have to do anything on the ground. Domestic flights are quoted separately as depending on your route you may drive the circuit or fly parts of it. International flights, your Kenya eTA (approx USD 30, takes about 3 working days), tips and drinks are not included.

When to go

Wildlife is most concentrated and visible during the dry months (June to October and January to February). The migration is in the Mara from about July to October, with river crossings peaking July to September. Those months are also the most expensive and busiest, and lodges fill up early, so if you have a set time, make sure you book early. Beyond them the parks are quieter, the country is green after the rains and many lodges cut their rates. We have a month-by-month guide to visiting Kenya.

Getting there

Most visitors fly into Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. We arrange the pick-up and can book a hotel in Nairobi if you arrive a day early or end in Nairobi before you fly home.