10 Days Maasai Mara & Serengeti Seniors Safari
Late starts, short flights, three-night stays and a guide who has thought of everything
10 Days Maasai Mara & Serengeti Seniors Safari
Some safaris are built like an endurance event: dawn alarms, eight-hour drives, a different bed every night. This one is not. You fly between the great parks in small aircraft, stay put for two or three nights at a time, and head out on game drives when you feel ready. Your vehicle is private, with a built-in step that doesn't demand a scramble, charging points for cameras and phones, and a roof that lifts so you can stand and look out without craning.
The wildlife is no gentler for it. The Maasai Mara brings lion prides, elephant families and the chance of a cheetah perched on a termite mound. The Serengeti adds its granite kopjes and leopard country, and the Ngorongoro Crater packs rhino, buffalo and flamingo-pink shallows into a single bowl you explore in one easy morning.
Around the edges are the small, lovely moments: feeding a Rothschild's giraffe at eye level in Nairobi, lunch in the garden suburb of Karen, a picnic beside a hippo pool, a stroll between coffee bushes on the slopes of Mount Meru. Your guides are trained in first aid, porters carry every bag, and our Nairobi team watches over each step of the journey.
Ideal for: Travellers in their sixties, seventies and beyond who want the classic East African safari without long road days or early alarms.
The journey in brief
You arrive in Nairobi and take a full day to recover, with a late-morning visit to the Giraffe Centre and an unhurried afternoon in leafy Karen. A short flight from Wilson Airport takes you to the Maasai Mara, where you stay three nights and set out on relaxed game drives at times that suit you. Light aircraft then carry you across the border via Migori and Kogatende to the central Serengeti for two nights among the kopjes. Another short flight lands you at Lake Manyara, a little over an hour below the Ngorongoro highlands, where you spend two nights on the cool crater rim and make one gentle descent to the crater floor with a picnic. On the final day you fly to Arusha, walk through a coffee farm and connect with your flight home from Kilimanjaro.
Highlights
Day by day
A Soft Landing in Nairobi
Our representative meets you inside the arrivals hall at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, takes charge of your trolley and walks you to a waiting car. The drive to your hotel in Nairobi's quiet, tree-lined suburbs takes around forty minutes, depending on traffic. There is nothing on today's schedule but rest. Take a long shower, sit under the trees with a pot of Kenyan tea and let your body catch up with the clock. In the early evening your safari consultant calls in for a short chat about the days ahead, any medication or mobility needs, and how you like your mornings. Dinner can be in the dining room or brought to your room, whichever feels right.
Giraffes at Eye Level, Tea in Karen
Sleep in. After a late breakfast your driver-guide collects you for the short drive to the Giraffe Centre, where a raised wooden platform brings you face to face with Rothschild's giraffes, a rare subspecies, and you can offer them pellets from your palm. Their tongues are long, grey and surprisingly gentle. Lunch is in a garden restaurant in Karen, the green suburb that takes its name from the Danish writer Karen Blixen. Afterwards, if you'd like, visit the farmhouse where she lived, now a small museum, or watch women shape and glaze ceramic beads at a workshop nearby. You're back in time for a nap before dinner, and porters will collect your bags in the morning.
Wings Over the Rift Valley
A mid-morning transfer brings you to Wilson Airport, Nairobi's busy little light-aircraft hub. Porters take your bags straight from the car to the plane, and the 15 kg soft-bag limit means there's little to manage. The flight takes about an hour, crossing the Great Rift Valley before the Mara's rolling grasslands spread out below. Your Kenyan guide meets you at the airstrip and helps you into the vehicle, using its step and grab handles. Lunch is waiting at camp, followed by a long rest through the warmest part of the day. Around four, if you feel like it, head out for a first gentle drive of about two hours, home well before dark.
The Mara at Your Own Pace
There is no wake-up call unless you ask for one. Early risers can be out at six with a flask of coffee to find lions finishing the night's hunt; everyone else can take breakfast on the veranda and leave at eight, when the light is still soft and the air cool. Drives last two or three hours, with a pause wherever you need to stretch your legs. Expect elephants feeding along the river, buffalo in the long grass and topi posing on termite mounds like sentries. Your guide carries cushions, blankets and a cool box, so comfort is never far away. The afternoon drive is optional, and a deck chair with a view is a perfectly good alternative.
A Picnic by the Mara River
Today has a different rhythm. You leave after a relaxed breakfast with a folding table, proper chairs and a cool box on board, so lunch is a sit-down affair wherever the animals happen to be. Your guide heads for the Mara River, where hippos snort and jostle in the brown pools and crocodiles bask on the banks. Between July and October the migration herds gather here to cross, and if they're stirring you'll be positioned for a clear view without having to clamber anywhere. Seats in the shade, binoculars passed around, a slice of lemon cake with afternoon tea. You're back at camp by mid-afternoon with plenty of time to rest before dinner.
Across the Border in Easy Stages
Porters load your bags after breakfast, and you're driven to the airstrip. The light aircraft makes a short hop to Migori, where you leave Kenya through a small, unhurried immigration office, then crosses into Tanzania and lands at Kogatende, where Tanzanian officials check your passport and visa. From there a connecting flight brings you down to Seronera, in the heart of the park. Each leg is short, and there's a chance to stretch at every stop. Your Tanzanian guide is waiting with a vehicle fitted just like the last, step and charging points included. After lunch and a rest, a short late-afternoon drive among the acacias and kopjes is a gentle introduction to the Serengeti.
Leopard Country
The central Serengeti is famous for its big cats, and the Seronera River valley, lined with sausage trees and yellow-barked acacias, is classic leopard territory. Your guide plans a morning drive of two to three hours, scanning the branches for a dangling tail and the granite kopjes for lions stretched out on the warm rock. Cheetahs often scan the open plains from the shade of a lone tree. You'll be back for lunch and a proper siesta. In the late afternoon a short drive takes you to a viewpoint for sundowners, with chairs set out and a blanket for your knees as the air cools. Dinner is by the fire, and an early night if you'd like one.
Up to the Crater Rim
A late breakfast, then a flight of about an hour from Seronera to the Lake Manyara airstrip, crossing the plains and the volcanic highlands. From there it's a little over an hour by road, through farmland and forest, up to the Ngorongoro highlands, where the air turns cool and green. Your room sits on the crater rim at about 2,300 metres, so you'll want a fleece in the evening and may find a hot-water bottle tucked into your bed. The afternoon is free: rest, read, or take a slow walk in the garden with views straight down into the crater, its floor laid out like a map some 600 metres below.
One Gentle Descent
Today is the day you have probably seen in documentaries. After breakfast you drive down the crater wall on a steep but well-built road, taking it slowly with stops for the view. The floor is a world of its own: buffalo herds, zebra and wildebeest grazing side by side, old elephant bulls among the fever trees of Lerai Forest and, with luck, a black rhino crossing the grassland. Lunch is a picnic at a hippo pool, eaten inside the vehicle if the black kites are feeling bold, as they often are. Park rules cap time on the floor at six hours, but you'll head up well before that, back on the rim for an afternoon rest.
Coffee on the Slopes of Mount Meru
A short morning flight from the Lake Manyara airstrip brings you into Arusha, a green market town in the shadow of Mount Meru. A guide from a family coffee farm walks you slowly between the bushes, explaining how the red cherries are picked, pulped, dried and roasted, with a bench waiting whenever you'd like one. You'll grind and brew a cup yourself, then sit down to lunch in the garden. A day room lets you shower and change before an afternoon transfer to Kilimanjaro International Airport, about an hour's drive, for your flight home. Porters see your bags all the way to the check-in desk.
Your route
The parks, lakes and towns you'll travel through, in order.
What's included
Prices
Book as a group and the saving is applied to your quote.
Rates are per person per day, sharing a room, and cover everything under what's included. Your tailored quote confirms the final price for your dates. International flights are not included.
Frequently asked questions
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Let's plan your safari
10 Days Maasai Mara & Serengeti Seniors Safari · 10 days
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