Four wildebeest walking along a still lake shore under a hazy sky

2-Day Masai Mara Escape

2 days · 1 nights

Overview

This is the itinerary I put together for guests who can free up a weekend but not a week: two days is enough for a proper look at the Mara without the two long drives eating most of your time. We leave Nairobi early, before the city traffic builds, and cover the roughly five to six hours to Narok and on to the reserve gate in one push, with a stop along the way to stretch and buy a coffee.

Because you only get one night in camp, the schedule is built around the two best light windows: an afternoon drive on arrival day and a full morning drive before you leave. Everything in between is set up to protect those two sessions rather than pad the day with extras.

Day by day

01

Nairobi to the Mara

We collect you early and drive southwest via Narok, entering the reserve through Sekenani or Oloolaimutia gate by early afternoon, depending on which camp you're booked into. After a light lunch at camp we head straight back out for an afternoon game drive, working the drainage lines and open plains where the resident prides tend to lie up once the heat breaks. Dinner and the night are at a tented camp inside or on the edge of the reserve.
02

Morning drive and the road home

We are out at first light, when the grass is still cool and cats that hunted overnight are often still on a kill or moving back toward cover. We drive until mid-morning, then return to camp for a late breakfast, pack up, and start the drive back to Nairobi, arriving in the early evening in time for an onward flight or a night in the city.

What's included

Ground transport from and to Nairobi in a 4x4 safari vehicle with a pop-up roof
One night full-board accommodation at a tented camp in or bordering the Mara
Two game drives, led by an English-speaking driver-guide
Masai Mara reserve entry fees
All meals throughout: breakfast, lunch and dinner
Bottled water in the vehicle throughout
Soft drinks, juices, tea and coffee throughout
Beer, wine and spirits throughout

International and domestic flights
Kenya e-Visa or entry permit fees
Tips and gratuities for your guide and camp staff
Items of a personal nature such as laundry and souvenirs
Travel insurance

Best time to visit

The reserve rewards a visit at any time of year, but late June through October adds a real chance of the migration herds being present, and January through March gives quieter camps and clearer, cooler mornings.

Common questions

What vehicle do we travel in?

A 4x4 safari Land Cruiser with a pop-up roof for standing game viewing. Depending on your group size it may be a private vehicle or shared with one or two other bookings travelling the same route on the same dates; tell us at booking if you need it private.

Are park fees included?

Yes. Masai Mara conservation and entry fees for both days are included. The only fees not included are anything outside the reserve itself, such as a visa on arrival in Kenya.

Is the migration guaranteed on this trip?

No, and I would be doing you a disservice to promise it. The wildebeest migration is a movement of animals following rainfall and grazing, not a timetable, and river crossings can happen at almost any hour or not at all on a given day. What I can promise on two days in the Mara is resident lion, plenty of plains game, and a good chance of cheetah; the migration, when it lines up, is a bonus.

How much driving is involved for two days?

It's honest to flag this: you are looking at roughly ten to twelve hours of road time over the two days, against one afternoon and one morning of game viewing. If that ratio bothers you, the 3-Day Masai Mara Classic gives you a full extra day in the park for not much more driving.

05Add-on experience

Hot air balloon safari

A hot air balloon aloft over open dry grassland at dawn, more balloons small on the horizon behind it

Over the Masai Mara

The Mara is where balloon safaris in Kenya started and it remains the classic flight: open plains, the river courses picked out by their tree lines, and game visible below in a way no vehicle can show you. Between roughly July and October, when the migration herds are in the reserve, the view from the basket takes in a scale of movement that is genuinely hard to grasp from the ground.

You are collected from camp in the dark and driven to the launch site, arriving while the crew are still inflating the envelope. Take-off is at first light, which is the whole point: the air is calmest then, and the low sun puts long shadows behind everything below you.

The flight runs roughly an hour, drifting with whatever wind there is rather than steering, so no two flights follow the same line. Height varies through the flight, from just above the treetops to a few hundred metres up.

Where the balloon lands, the ground crew are already setting up breakfast, cooked in the open and eaten at the landing site before you are driven back to camp. Most guests are back in time for the rest of the morning.

Worth knowing

Flights go at dawn and are weather dependent. Wind or low cloud cancels them, and that call belongs to the pilot on the morning, not to us.
Baskets are small and fill early in high season, so this is worth adding when you book the safari rather than deciding once you have arrived.
It is a genuinely early start, normally a pre-dawn pickup from camp.

Who flies it

The flight itself is run by a licensed balloon operator with its own pilots and civil aviation approval, not by us. What we do is book your seats, make sure the pickup lines up with where you are staying and what your itinerary is doing the rest of that day, and sort it out with the operator if the weather moves your flight.

Add a balloon flight

Ready to book this safari?

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A maned lion sitting upright and alert in golden dry grass