Maasai Mara

Why Maasai Mara works

The Maasai Mara is the stage for the greatest wildlife spectacle on Earth: between July and October, over a million wildebeest and zebra cross crocodile-infested rivers in the Great Migration, chased by the reserve's famously dense predator population of lions, cheetahs and leopards. Beyond the migration months, the Mara delivers Big Five game drives year-round across rolling savannah dotted with acacia trees, best experienced at dawn from a hot-air balloon drifting silently over grazing herds before landing to a champagne bush breakfast. Maasai villages within and around the conservancies welcome visitors for cultural visits -- beaded jewellery, adumu jumping dances and manyatta homestead tours offer a counterpoint to the game drives. Conservancies bordering the reserve proper, such as Naboisho and Mara North, cap vehicle numbers for quieter sightings and permit night drives and walking safaris that the core reserve does not allow. Luxury tented camps along the Mara and Talek rivers put wildlife literally outside the tent flap, with hippo grunts and lion calls as the evening soundtrack. Add a day trip to a local market town like Sekenani for a grounded, non-safari slice of Kenyan life.

Trip Snapshot

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