9 Days Kenya Family Safari & Watamu Beach Holiday

Overview

Highlights

• ✦Three full nights in the Maasai Mara
• ✦Lake Nakuru rhinos and flamingos
• ✦Four nights on Watamu Beach (quieter than Diani)
• ✦Snorkeling at Watamu Marine National Park
• ✦Optional Gede Ruins visit (13th-century Swahili lost city)
• ✦Optional turtle release at Local Ocean Conservation
• ✦Family-sized rooms throughout
• ✦Private 4x4 Land Cruiser for safari

Day-by-day itinerary

1. 1

   Arrive Nairobi

   Nairobi

   Welcome to Kenya. Your driver-guide meets you at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport with a Family Holiday Safaris name board and transfers you in a private vehicle to your Nairobi hotel — usually a 45-minute drive depending on traffic. After check-in, the rest of the day is at leisure to recover from your flight, swim, and have a quiet welcome dinner at the hotel. Your guide returns in the evening for a 30-minute briefing on the days ahead: route, lodges, packing, money, voltage, what to expect each morning. Overnight at your Nairobi hotel — Hemingways, Eka, Crowne Plaza or similar depending on your preference and budget.

   Meals: Welcome dinner · Stay: Hemingways Nairobi or Eka Hotel

2. 2

   Nairobi → Lake Nakuru

   Nairobi → Lake Nakuru

   After breakfast at your Nairobi hotel, your professional driver-guide collects you in a private 4x4 Land Cruiser around 8am for the scenic three-hour drive northwest, descending the dramatic escarpment that drops 600 meters into the Great Rift Valley. You stop at the Rift Valley viewpoint to photograph the Aberdares and the perfect cone of Mount Longonot before continuing to Lake Nakuru National Park — Kenya's bird-watching capital and a thriving rhino sanctuary. After lunch at your lodge, you embark on your first afternoon game drive in search of the rare white rhino, Rothschild's giraffe, defassa waterbuck and the enormous flocks of greater and lesser flamingos that turn the lake's edge a vivid pink. Sunset over Baboon Cliff is unforgettable. Return to the lodge for dinner and overnight, ears tuned to the night calls of the African bush.

   Meals: B, L, D · Stay: Lake Nakuru Sopa Lodge

3. 3

   Lake Nakuru → Maasai Mara

   Lake Nakuru → Maasai Mara

   Depart Lake Naivasha after breakfast for the five-hour drive south through Narok and Maasai country to the Maasai Mara National Reserve — 1,510 square kilometres of golden savanna pressed against Tanzania's Serengeti. Lunch is served at your safari lodge inside or adjacent to the reserve. By 4pm you are back in the Land Cruiser for your first Mara game drive, when the savanna's prides emerge from rest. Lions sprawl on rock outcrops, cheetahs scan the plains for Thomson's gazelle, and elephant herds crest the horizon in gold dust. From July to October the wildebeest migration thunders across these plains — over 1.5 million animals in the world's last great mammal migration. Dinner around the campfire and overnight at your Mara camp or lodge, the night air rich with the smell of woodsmoke and wild sage.

   Meals: B, L, D · Stay: Mara Sarova Camp (family tents)

4. 4

   Maasai Mara — Full day game drives

   Maasai Mara National Reserve

   Today belongs to the Mara. After early coffee, head out at 6am for the dawn game drive when the big cats are still hunting — the diamond hours when leopards descend from sausage trees and lions finish their kills. You return to the lodge around 10am for a full breakfast and a few hours of leisure: swimming pool, spa treatment, a lazy verandah read or laundry turnaround. After lunch, set out again at 4pm for the golden-hour drive. Between July and October your guide will track radio reports of wildebeest crossings at the Mara River, where Nile crocodiles wait — one of the most dramatic wildlife spectacles on Earth. An optional sunrise hot-air balloon safari can be arranged at $450 per person, ending with a champagne bush breakfast cooked beside your landing site. Dinner and overnight at the lodge.

   Meals: B, L, D · Stay: Same as Day 3

5. 5

   Maasai Mara — Full day with cultural visit

   Maasai Mara National Reserve

   A second full Mara day allows you to explore corners of the reserve missed yesterday — the Mara Triangle in the west, the Talek River area, or Musiara Marsh where the legendary Marsh Pride lives. Mid-morning, your guide can arrange an authentic visit to a Maasai manyatta where you are welcomed with the traditional adumu jumping dance, learn how the Maasai light fire by friction, and tour the dung-and-stick houses. The visit fee directly supports the community. Return to the lodge for lunch, then a final golden afternoon drive — many travelers see their best wildlife on this fifth-day drive when guides know exactly where the prides have settled. Dinner and overnight under a Mara sky that holds more stars than you have ever seen, the distant whoop of hyena drifting across the plains.

   Meals: B, L, D · Stay: Same as Day 3

6. 6

   Maasai Mara → Mombasa → Watamu

   Maasai Mara → Watamu

   A final morning Mara game drive and breakfast, then drive to the Mara airstrip for a short scheduled flight to Wilson Airport in Nairobi (or direct to Mombasa via Wilson on a connecting flight). On arrival in Mombasa, your coastal driver-guide meets you at Moi International Airport and transfers you south across the Likoni ferry to Diani Beach — about 90 minutes total. Check in at your beach resort, change into swimwear and walk straight onto the white sand. The reef-protected lagoon is perfect for an afternoon swim with the children, and the resort hosts a sunset welcome cocktail on the beach. Dinner of fresh tropical fish on the terrace and overnight at your Diani Beach resort. The bush dust is washed away.

   Meals: B, D · Stay: Hemingways Watamu or Medina Palms

7. 7

   Watamu Beach — Marine park snorkel

   Watamu Marine Park

   A full beach day at your own pace. The kids spend the morning in the lagoon — body-boarding, snorkeling in the rock pools at low tide, building sandcastles, hunting hermit crabs. Parents alternate between the beach loungers and the spa. Lunch is a long, slow affair on the terrace — fresh tropical fruit, grilled kingfish, coconut rice. The afternoon drifts into a family snorkel trip to Kisite Marine Park (optional) where you swim with dolphins and see hawksbill turtles, parrotfish and dazzling reef life. Sundowners on the beach with the children running in the shallows.

   Meals: B, L, D · Stay: Same as Day 6

8. 8

   Watamu Beach — Gede Ruins or free day

   Watamu

   An entirely free beach day — the resort, the lagoon, the sand. No alarm clock, no schedule. Late breakfast, late lunch, sunset cocktails and a slow, golden evening. Some families take the kids on the camel-ride along the beach; others take a glass-bottom boat trip to the reef; others simply hammock-and-book all day. After ten days of bush travel, this is the day everyone needs. The lagoon, the palms, the trade wind, and the sound of the Indian Ocean.

   Meals: B, L, D · Stay: Same as Day 6

9. 9

   Watamu → Mombasa Airport — Departure

   Watamu → Mombasa

   A leisurely final breakfast on the beach, late check-out, and transfer to Mombasa Moi International Airport (or Ukunda airstrip for a Wilson Airport connection) for your departing flight. If your flight is in the late afternoon or evening, we can arrange a guided half-day Mombasa Old Town walking tour: the 16th-century Portuguese Fort Jesus, the carved Swahili doors of the Old Town, the spice market and the dhow harbour. End of safari. We will be waiting for your next visit — perhaps Tanzania and the Serengeti, perhaps Mount Kenya, perhaps a return trip to introduce a friend or family member to the Africa you have just discovered.

   Meals: B · Stay: N/A (departure)

What to bring

• • Lightweight neutral-color clothing (khaki, olive, beige)
• • Warm fleece for cool early morning game drives
• • Sun hat and sunglasses with UV protection
• • High-SPF sunscreen and lip balm
• • Insect repellent (DEET)
• • Comfortable walking shoes and sandals
• • Swimsuit for lodge pools
• • Binoculars (8x42 ideal for safari)
• • Camera with telephoto lens (200mm or longer)
• • Spare batteries, memory cards, power bank
• • Refillable water bottle
• • Small daypack
• • Anti-malarial prophylaxis (consult your doctor)
• • Copies of passport and travel insurance
• • Reef shoes
• • Personal snorkel mask

Frequently asked questions