7 Days Kenya Wildlife and Cultural Safari

Enjoy some sightseeing around Nairobi, depending on your interests. Options include the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, where you an interact with elephants; the Giraffe Center, for a hands-on giraffe encounter and educational experience on giraffe conservation; and/or the Kazuri Bead Factory, established as a women’s work cooperative, this place and continues to provide quality employment for women through bead-making with local clay.

After an early breakfast, depart for Lake Nakuru National Park, which is among Kenya's finest wildlife parks.

Flanked by rocky escarpments, pockets of acacia forest, and at least one waterfall, the park is gorgeous year-round. It's home to both black and white rhinos, lions, leopards, hippos, and endangered Rothschild's giraffes. Rising water levels in 2014 forced the park's famous flamingos to flee (although a small number have returned), and the lake is now hauntingly surrounded by drowned trees. The forested area below Flamingo Hill is a favorite lion-spotting point; lionesses love to sleep in the trees, and leopards also frequent the area.

You'll stay inside the park, to make the most of your single entry park fee, allowing for game drives before and after lunch at the lodge.

After breakfast, drive by private safari vehicle to Maji Moto Maasai Cultural Camp, which offers an authentic cultural experience and a way to meet local people, with opportunities to take beautiful photographs.

Enjoy local culture, wildlife, and the environment in the Loita Hills and Plains, and explore local education, health and conservation projects supported with donations from our tours. Spend time with local people to experience their lives and understand their culture, challenges, and ways they are adapting to outside influences.

Activities throughout the day could include:

• Warrior welcome and training demonstration
• Walks the Loita Hills and Plains for wildlife viewing
• Ceremonies for blessings in and around the village, and a visit with a medicine woman
• Gather medicinal plants and learn about their uses
• Daily life in the village (beading, cooking, water collection, laundry)
• Bathing at a hot spring
• Campfire, storytelling, and songs
• School and community visit

After breakfast, take a flight to Maasai Mara, to arrive in time for lunch and afternoon game drive.

The world-renowned Masai Mara National Reserve needs little introduction. Its tawny, wildlife-stuffed savannahs are familiar to anyone who has watched nature documentaries. Reliable rains and plentiful vegetation underpin this extraordinary ecosystem, and the millions of herbivores it supports. Wildebeest, zebras, impalas, elephants, Masai giraffes and several species of gazelle all call the Mara home. This vast concentration of game accounts for high predator numbers, including cheetahs, leopards and the highest lion densities in the world. Elephants, buffalo, and many other species also abound.

Enjoy morning and afternoon safari drives to spot the wildlife.

After breakfast and a morning game drive, return overland to Nairobi, to connect with your flights home or onward. You can also opt to fly back to Nairobi in the morning, or add a "day room" to your package to rest and refresh before an evening flight (additional cost).