This 10-day trip pairs four nights of safari in the Maasai Mara with five nights on the beach at Diani on the Indian Ocean coast. It's a Kenya safari and beach holiday for couples and families who want proper game viewing and then a real rest, without a long drive between the two. A flight links the bush and the coast.
From Nairobi you drive across the floor of the Great Rift Valley, up the western escarpment and down into the Mara in time for an afternoon game drive. The next three days are full and half-day drives through grassland and riverine forest. Your guide looks for lions, leopards in the trees, cheetahs on the plains and elephant herds in the long grass. There's a picnic lunch in the bush, an afternoon at a Maasai manyatta, and the option of a sunrise balloon flight with breakfast afterwards. When the migration herds are in the reserve, they add to the picture, but timing decides that.
On day five you fly from the Mara airstrip to the coast. At Diani the reef sits just off the beach, so you can snorkel straight from the sand. One day you sail by dhow to Wasini Island and Kisite-Mpunguti Marine National Park, with a Swahili seafood lunch on the island. Another is for kitesurfing, diving, a mangrove kayak or the Colobus Conservation centre. You fly out from Ukunda or Mombasa on day ten.
Our Arusha team can suggest a Mara camp and a beach resort to suit your budget.
