4-Day Maasai Mara and Lake Nakuru

If you only do one safari in Kenya, this is usually the right one. Four days covers two genuinely different ecosystems rather than more of the same. Lake Nakuru is a soda lake in the floor of the Rift Valley, and it is the best rhino viewing in the country: both black and white rhino in a compact, fenced sanctuary where you have a real chance of seeing both in a morning, along with Rothschild's giraffe and tree-climbing lion. The flamingo are the postcard, though be warned that numbers swing enormously with water levels and nobody can promise you a pink shoreline on a given week. The Maasai Mara is the other half: open grassland, the highest density of big cats in Africa, elephant and buffalo, and from July to October the wildebeest migration and the Mara River crossings. On price, the fee structure is the thing to understand. Lake Nakuru is Kenya Wildlife Service at USD 90 per adult per day, flat year-round. The Maasai Mara is Narok County at USD 100 per adult per day from January to June and USD 200 from July to December. All of it is inside our price, and the doubling in July is the single largest driver of the seasonal gap you will see in our grid. Prices per person sharing at mid-range accommodation: from USD 1,085 at six sharing, USD 1,520 to USD 2,260 at two, depending on season. Budget and luxury tiers on request. Two operational notes we would rather you heard now. The Mara ticket is twelve hours, 06:00 to 18:00, so departure-morning drives finish by 10:00 or a full extra day's fee triggers. And Nakuru's flamingo numbers depend on the lake's alkalinity, which depends on the rains; we will tell you what the current situation is when you enquire rather than showing you a photograph from 2010.