2-Day Masai Mara Escape
A weekend-length dash to the Mara for guests short on time: one afternoon and one full morning of game drives either side of a single night in camp.
5-Day Romantic Escape
Overview
This is the shorter of our two romance itineraries, and it is deliberately built around two places rather than five. Two nights in the Mara give you an afternoon drive, a full morning drive and a second afternoon, which is enough to see the reserve properly without the trip becoming a schedule. Then you fly to the coast rather than driving, which turns what would be two days on the road into a single morning.
The pace is the point. Game drives run early and late, and the middle of each day is yours. At the coast nothing is scheduled at all beyond the reef trip and the dhow, both of which you can move or drop. We book twin-or-double as a double by default, ask camps to hold a table away from the main dining area where they have one, and let them know it is a couples trip so they are not seating you at a shared table.
Day by day
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01
Nairobi to the Masai Mara
We collect you early and drive southwest via Narok, reaching the reserve by early afternoon. After lunch at camp we head out for an afternoon game drive, working the drainage lines while the light softens. Dinner and the night are at a tented camp in or bordering the reserve.
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02
A full day in the reserve
An early start for the best of the morning light, back to camp through the hottest hours, then out again until last light. Where we drive depends on where sightings have been concentrated over the preceding days rather than on a fixed loop. If you would rather have a sundowner set up somewhere quiet than push on to one more sighting, say so and we will arrange it with the camp.
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03
The Mara to Diani by air
A short morning drive before breakfast, then we transfer you to the airstrip for the flight to Wilson Airport in Nairobi, connecting to a scheduled flight down to Ukunda on the edge of Diani. You are met on landing and taken to your beachfront hotel, usually in time for a late lunch. The rest of the day is unscheduled.
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04
Diani, at your own pace
Nothing is fixed. The reef trip and the dhow sail are both available today and both are yours to move; most couples take the snorkelling in the morning while the water is clearest and keep the afternoon free. The lagoon inside the reef stays calm and shallow along most of its length, so swimming does not depend on the tide the way it does further up the coast.
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05
Departure
A last morning on the sand before we transfer you to Ukunda airstrip or Moi International in Mombasa for your onward flight. If your flight is late in the day we will ask the hotel for a late checkout rather than moving you out at eleven.
What's included
Included
- Ground transport for the Mara leg in a 4x4 safari vehicle with a pop-up roof
- One light-aircraft flight from the Mara to Wilson Airport, connecting to a scheduled flight to Ukunda
- Two nights full-board accommodation in or bordering the Masai Mara
- Two nights full-board accommodation at a beachfront hotel in Diani
- Three game drives, led by an English-speaking driver-guide
- One snorkelling trip and one dhow sailing trip at the coast (arranged on your behalf through our coast agent)
- Masai Mara reserve entry fees
- Marine park fees for the reef snorkelling trip
- All meals throughout: breakfast, lunch and dinner
- Bottled water in the vehicle and at your accommodation
- Soft drinks, juices, tea and coffee throughout
- Beer, wine and spirits throughout
Not included
- International flights to and from Kenya
- Kenya entry visa
- Travel insurance
- Items of a personal nature such as laundry and souvenirs
Best time to visit
Good year-round. July through October puts the migration herds in or near the Mara and gives the calmest sea at Diani; January through March is drier in the reserve and equally settled on the coast.
Common questions
Can you arrange a private dinner or a surprise on one of the nights?
Yes, and it is worth telling us at booking rather than on arrival. Most camps and beach hotels can set up a private table, a beach dinner or something in the room, but they need notice and some of them charge for it. Tell us what you have in mind and we will find out what is actually possible at the specific property you are booked into, rather than promising something the camp then cannot deliver.
Why fly between the Mara and the coast instead of driving?
There is no sensible road between the two. Driving would take the better part of two days each way and would eat most of a five-day trip. The flight turns that into a single morning, which is the only reason this itinerary fits into five days at all.
Is the room a double or twin?
We book a double by default and confirm it with the property, since many camps set rooms up as twins unless told otherwise. If you have a preference either way, tell us and we will have it noted on the booking.
Can we extend either half?
Easily, and it is the most common change people ask for. An extra night in the Mara gives you a second full day in the reserve, and extra nights at Diani are usually the cheapest part of the trip to add. Tell us how many days you have and we will rebalance the itinerary around them.
05Add-on experience
Hot air balloon safari
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 flightReady to book this safari?
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