Kenya Tours with Flights from €870

The standard Kenya itinerary is a loop out of Nairobi that hits three or four parks in 7-10 days. Day one you land at NBO, overnight in Nairobi, meet the group. Day two is a long road transfer (5-7 hours) or a light-aircraft hop (50 minutes) to the Masai Mara. You get three nights in the Mara with two game drives daily — a 6am-10am morning drive when cats are hunting, and a 3.30pm-sunset drive. From the Mara you drop into Lake Nakuru or Lake Naivasha for flamingos, rhino and a rift-valley break, then swing south-east to Amboseli for two nights with the Kilimanjaro backdrop and the elephant herds the park is famous for. Last morning back to Nairobi for flights home.

Game drives run in 4WD Land Cruisers or Toyota vans with pop-up roofs. The right vehicle matters. Budget and mid-range operators typically seat 6-8 per vehicle with a window seat guaranteed; the good ones (Bonvoyage, Perfect Wilderness, Intrepid) cap at six. Overland trucks carrying 18-24 people do exist in Kenya but most serious game viewing happens in the smaller vehicles that transfer in at the park gates.

Expect 10-14 game drives over a 9-day trip and roughly 600-900 km of driving if you stay on the ground. Light-aircraft upgrades (Safarilink, AirKenya) cost €180-€320 per leg and save a full day each way.

The Great Migration is not a single event in one place — it is roughly 1.5 million wildebeest and 300,000 zebra moving in a slow clockwise loop between Tanzania's Serengeti and Kenya's Masai Mara over the year. Where to be and when is the single biggest decision on a Kenya trip.

July to October is Kenya's window. The herds cross the Mara River into the Masai Mara from roughly mid-July, the crossings themselves are concentrated in August and September, and they drift back south into the Serengeti through late October. If you want the famous crocodile-and-wildebeest-river-crossing shot, you book the Mara in August or September and you book 9-12 months ahead. Lodge availability is the constraint, not weather.

January to March is the flip side — the calving season on the southern Serengeti's short-grass plains in Tanzania. Half a million wildebeest calves are born in a three-week window in February, predators are everywhere, and this is arguably better game viewing than a river crossing if you do not mind that it is in Tanzania, not Kenya.

A 10-14 day "Great Migration" combo trip handles both. Classic routing: fly NBO, four nights Masai Mara (Kenya side), charter flight south across the border to the northern Serengeti for three nights, then Ngorongoro Crater and Tarangire for four more, fly out from Kilimanjaro JRO or back via Arusha. Africa Venture Safaris' 12-day Best of Kenya and Tanzania at around €2,210 is the representative mid-range combo.

Kenya has clearer price tiers than most safari countries and the gaps are big.

Overland and budget group tours (Intrepid, G Adventures, Acacia, Dragoman, Absolute Africa) put you in a 18-24 seat truck or a minibus, camping or in basic tented camps, eating group meals out of the back of the vehicle. Dragoman and Absolute Africa run the big multi-week Nairobi-to-Cape-Town routes; Intrepid and G Adventures do the 7-10 day Kenya-Tanzania loops. Budget €90-€140 per day on the truck side, €1,600-€2,400 for a 10-day lodge-based group tour.

Mid-range lodge safaris (€220-€420 per person per night, all meals and game drives) are where most travellers land. Operators like Wild Frontiers, Africa Venture Safaris and the better Kenya-owned specialists put you in permanent tented camps inside or on the edge of the reserves — en-suite canvas rooms, proper beds, decent food, your own 4WD with six seats. A 9-day trip at this tier lands around €2,250-€3,600 before flights.

Luxury camps (€700-€2,200 pp per night) are the top end: Governors' Camp, Cottar's 1920s, Mara Plains, Angama Mara, Sanctuary Olonana. Private conservancies that let you go off-road and do night drives and walking safaris, one guide and one tracker per vehicle, Wi-Fi, plunge pools, a wine list. The price jump from mid-range to luxury in Kenya is roughly 3-4x and mostly buys you privacy from other vehicles at sightings.

Kenya has two rainy seasons and two dry seasons, and the dry seasons are not equal.

July to October is the prime safari window: dry, cool in the highlands (10-24°C at Mara altitude), herds in the Masai Mara, river crossings in August-September. This is peak pricing and peak booking pressure — the best camps sell out 9-12 months ahead for August. Game viewing is at its easiest because the grass is short and the animals are concentrated at remaining water.

January and February are the second dry season: warm, clear, green after the short rains, excellent game viewing in Amboseli, Samburu and Laikipia. The migration is in Tanzania during these months (calving season on the southern Serengeti short-grass plains is roughly 1-20 February), so if you are committed to wildebeest this is a Tanzania trip with a Kenya add-on rather than the other way round.

The long rains run roughly late March to late May. Avoid. Some camps close, roads in the Mara turn to mud, and the bush grows chest-high so animals are hard to spot. Short rains in November are manageable — brief afternoon showers, green landscape, lodges drop rates 20-35%, and game viewing is still strong.

The coast flips the highland weather: Watamu, Diani and Mombasa are hot and humid year-round (26-32°C) with heaviest rain in April-May and October-November. August coast weather is dry, breezy and genuinely pleasant — pair with your Mara dates.

Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta (NBO) is the main gateway and handles almost all safari trips. Kenya Airways (KQ) is the home carrier and runs direct from London Heathrow and Paris CDG; Qatar Airways connects via Doha from most European hubs with strong one-stop fares; KLM flies direct daily from Amsterdam; British Airways direct from London; Turkish Airlines via Istanbul; Lufthansa via Frankfurt; Ethiopian via Addis Ababa. Air France discontinued its direct Paris-NBO a while back so Paris passengers route through Amsterdam or Doha.

Typical return fares from Western Europe run €520-€780 in shoulder months (February, March, June, November) and €800-€1,250 over July-September migration peak and Christmas. Shop 4-8 months out for the peak window; fares do not usually drop last-minute in August. Flight times: London-NBO is 8.5 hours direct, Amsterdam-NBO 8.5 hours direct, 11-14 hours with one stop from most other European cities.

Mombasa (MBA) is the coastal gateway. Fewer direct options — Turkish Airlines and a handful of charter operators — but it is the right airport if you are combining a safari with Watamu or Diani beach. Most travellers fly into NBO, do the safari, then take the 1-hour internal hop down to MBA or Malindi.

Internal light-aircraft is the time-saver most people miss. Safarilink and AirKenya run scheduled flights from Nairobi Wilson (WIL, not NBO) to every major park airstrip — Masai Mara, Amboseli, Samburu, Lewa — for €180-€320 per leg. A 1-hour flight replaces a 5-7 hour road transfer. On Multiday.tours you will see live Kiwi fares next to every tour so you can size up the full bundle before booking.