8 Day Kenya Safari Experience - Amboseli and Tsavo Extension Diani Beach
Beach Holiday and Wildlife Safari in Kenya
Have a hassle-free holiday and go back with good memories in this safari tour combined with a beach holiday at the Diani Beach. Encounter wildlife through exciting game drives at the Amboseli National Park and the Tsavo East National Park. After all the tiresome-but-thrilling days of being one with nature and wildlife, extend your stay to a well-deserved break at a luxurious beach resort and take in the beauty of Diani Beach.
Key information
- Private and group safari possible, rates vary depending on this
- Group size: Minimum 2, maximum group is 8 persons in a pop-up roof minivan
- Language: English speaking driver / guide
- Park fees included
Highlights
- Starts in Nairobi, ends in Diani Beach
- Transport in a safari pop-up roof minivan
- Plenty of leisure time at the Diani Beach
- Discover Amboseli's famous herds of elephants
- Find a large number of animal and plant species at Tsavo East
- All transfers in safari minibus or mini coach
- 7 nights accommodation
- Daily meals
Styles
Accommodation
Accommodation level: Mid-range
You will stay at various accommodations arranged by Ultimate Africa Expeditions.
Program
Day 1: Nairobi
Upon arrival, you will be met and transferred to the PrideInn Plaza. The remainder of the day shall be spent at your own leisure. Accommodation will be on a bed-and-breakfast basis.
Day 2: Nairobi to Amboseli National Park
After breakfast at the hotel, clients will be met and briefed by the driver guide and depart to Amboseli. Upon entering the park, the driver will open the roof of your bus, so you can stand up with the wind in your hair. If the weather is clear, you will catch sight of the majestic Mount Kilimanjaro directly ahead. The drive from Nairobi to Amboseli National Park is 250 kilometers and will take about four hours.
You will arrive at your lodge in time for lunch and later have time to relax before setting off back into the park for your afternoon game drive. You will return to the camp as the sun sets. Overnight stay will be at the Amboseli Sentrim Camp or similar accommodation on a full-board basis.
Day 3: Amboseli National Park
On this day, there will be a morning and afternoon game drive in the park. You will be taken across the vast lakebed which is often dry but still very swampy in areas. Amboseli is best known for its great herds of elephants, and you will often find many of them standing knee-deep in the water, spraying themselves to keep cool.
There is a lot of other game that you can find, too, like the cheetah, buffalo, giraffe, many types of gazelle, and other plains game. What is more magnificent is that they are all set against the amazing backdrop of majestic Mount Kilimanjaro. Overnight stay will be at the Amboseli Sentrim Camp or similar accommodation on a full-board basis.
Day 4: Amboseli to Tsavo East
After breakfast at the lodge, you will depart to Tsavo East National Park. You will check in at the lodge and have lunch at Lion Hill Safari Lodge. The afternoon game drive is scheduled until sunset. The Tsavo East is famous for its magnificent scenery, volcanic hills, rivers, as well as large numbers of animal and plant species. The drive from Amboseli to Tsavo East is 315 kilometers and will take about four hours.
In addition to large herds of red elephants, other attractions include the Lugards Falls, Mudanda Rock, and Aruba Dam. Overnight stay will be at Lion Hill Safari Lodge or similar accommodation on a full-board basis.
Day 5: Tsavo East to Diani Mombasa
After breakfast at the lodge, you will depart to your beach hotel arriving late in the afternoon. Check in at Diani Sea Resort's superior garden room on an all-inclusive basis.
Day 6 to 7: Diani Beach
Spend your day at your leisure in the hotel. Overnight stay will be at Diani Sea Resort's superior garden room on an all-inclusive basis.
Day 8: Beach Hotel to Moi International Airport (MBA)
Check-out time is at 10:00 a.m. You will then be transferred to Moi International Airport (MBA) to catch up on your international flight.
Location
This safari will be held at Amboseli National Park and Tsavo East National Park in Kenya.
Amboseli National Park
Like an oasis in the dry savanna with its emerald-green, perennial swamps beneath towering Kilimanjaro, Amboseli National Park is the best place in Africa to see elephants in dense concentrations. Amboseli became a wildlife sanctuary in the 1940s and was declared a national park by Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, in 1974.
Although the first impression when you take the inside road in the park can be of a bleak dust bowl, any doubts about the park are allayed by its magnificent elephant herds and high counts of other plains animals which converge to graze and drink at the park’s permanent swamps and lakes. The wildlife can be viewed against the strikingly beautiful backdrop of Kilimanjaro, towering behind and offering scenes that are instantly recognizable.
The Amboseli wetlands are the dominant features of the park, with the Enkongo Narok swamp and its central feature, Lake Kioko, the main focus in the western part of the park, and the Longinye Swamp, the big wildlife magnet, in the east. These permanent swamps are fed by meltwater from the peaks of Kilimanjaro, which soaks into the volcanic rock and springs up from the plains all year.
After the rains, a carpet of pasture fills the plains in between, but for much of the year, the swamps with their sedges, water lilies, and papyrus provide a brilliant contrast with the dry plains. Much of the park’s vegetation is low, but to the south of the wetland areas, towards Kilimanjaro, there is more woodland, with yellow-barked acacia and several other species of trees providing great opportunities for seeing hundreds of Maasai giraffes and cover for hunting lion and cheetahs.
Although most of southern Kenya’s plains wildlife can be seen at Amboseli, including Thomson’s and Grant’s gazelles, buffalo, hartebeest, eland, and waterbuck, the most numerous animals of the open plains are wildebeest and Burchell’s zebra.
Bird counts in Amboseli can be astonishing: There are reckoned to be as many as 400 species present in this small park, including native rarities like the Madagascar squacco heron and the Taveta golden weaver (relatively common at camps and lodges around the park), as well as Palearctic migrants such as the Caspian plover.
The water birds are the highlights, and in many areas, the park’s tracks follow close to the water’s edge, allowing you great sightings of specialties like the long-toed lapwing and rufous-bellied heron, if you can take your eyes off the elephants in the swamp.
Tsavo East National Park
At more than 13,700 square kilometers, Tsavo East National Park is most famous for its huge herds of dust-red elephants as more than 10,000 of them bulldoze their way around this vast park.
Incidentally, although Tsavo East and Tsavo West share a name and a common border, coinciding with the Mombasa highway, they are two distinct national parks with different eco-systems: the wooded and hilly landscapes, dotted with volcanic cones and dramatic, black lava flows of Tsavo West National Park, and the much flatter, more open plains and scattered bush that characterizes Tsavo East National Park.
The southern part of Tsavo East National Park is a popular destination for short Tsavo East National Park safaris by minibus from the coast. But the park can be visited by safari vehicles coming from all directions (Nairobi, Amboseli, Tsavo West, and more).
Tsavo East is mostly a vast flat plain of sandy soil, split by the shallow trough of the Galana River. Nearly all visits take place south of the Galana, where seasonal streams form tributaries that run into the river, their banks lined by small areas of thicker bush. Another watercourse, the seasonal Voi River, runs east through this part of the park, feeding the shallow Aruba dam and then meandering to the coast.
The Galana, which rises in the central highlands and whose upper reaches are known as the Athi, is one of Kenya’s biggest rivers. Its valley, rocky in much of its western course, sandy and doum-palm fringed further east, is one of Tsavo East National Park’s defining physical features.
The plant communities of Tsavo East are dominated by short grasses, thorn bushes, and two major species of trees. The baobab is the iconic tree of Tsavo West National Park, across the Mombasa highway, but you will still find significant numbers of these compelling trees, with their enormous trunks and stumpy branches. They form important habitats for many species of birds and insects. You will often see hornbills using holes in baobabs to nest.
On wildlife densities, short-maned Tsavo lions and cheetahs appear often, all the plains grazers and bush browsers are much in evidence, and elephants, many with big tusks, surge across the river, wallow in the waterholes, and file over the red earth roads in front of bulging baobab trees.
Despite being in southeast Kenya, Tsavo East is zoologically associated with northern Kenya, meaning you will see long-necked gerenuk and Somali ostrich, the male of which has a blue neck and legs, and introduced herds of the handsome, fine-striped, Grevy’s zebra. There is also a breeding population of black rhinos, closely monitored by rangers who track them through the bush, though very few travelers on Tsavo East safaris are lucky enough to see them.
Food
You will be served three meals daily, except in Nairobi wherein only breakfast is provided.
The following meals are included:
- Breakfast
- Lunch
- Dinner
- Drinks
The following dietary requirement(s) are served and/or catered for:
- Regular (typically includes meat and fish)
Things to do (optional)
Although the dominant presence of Kilimanjaro marks the southern horizon and seems to fill half the sky, the Amboseli ecosystem, the region has a number of other important landmarks and features that provide orientation and variety to game drives.
Observation Hill
The obvious place to start is the small kopje known as Observation Hill, just to the west of Lake Kioko. Parking at the bottom, you are allowed to walk to the top, from where you can gaze across the whole park and often see past the fringing reeds to the resident hippos in the lake.
Lake Amboseli
Looking northwest, the flat and dusty plain is Lake Amboseli, a very occasionally rain-filled zone that occupies the northwest corner of the park. Some five kilometers to the east, the human reserve of Ol Tukai, in the center of the park, is the fenced location of Amboseli’s park headquarters, the big Ol Tukai Lodge, and the currently mothballed Amboseli Lodge. If you are in need of a comfort break, a cold drink, or another leg stretch, drivers will often pause a game drive to take a break there.
Mudanda Rock
Mudanda Rock is an Ayer’s rock-like sandstone inselberg whose bare flanks form a natural water catchment area that feeds into a large, seasonal lake, attracting large numbers of animals.
The Yatta Plateau
The Yatta Plateau is a 300-kilometer-long ancient lava flow that stretches along the east and north bank of the Athi-Galana. Its geo-magnetic qualities are believed to play a role in guiding migratory birds and large numbers of Palearctic migrants that can be seen in the area.
Lugard Falls
Lugard Falls are a series of short falls and steep rapids on the Galana River, where relatively harder rock has created a bottleneck in the valley and impedes the river’s progress. Crocodile Point, where the big reptiles can often be seen basking in the sun, is just downstream from there. At some point on most Tsavo East safaris, you are almost bound to stop there to stretch your legs and take photos.
What's included
- 7 nights accommodation, including beach stay at Diani Sea Resort
- 3 meals daily as specified, except at the Nairobi hotel
- Airport transfers on a private basis
- All park fees and government taxes
- English speaking driver-guide on a private basis
- Game drives at Amboseli National Park
- Game drives at Tsavo East National Park
- Meet and greet services
- Transport in a minibus with a pop-up roof
What's not included
- Any items of a personal nature
- Baggage and medical insurance
- Dining rooms tips
- Drinks
- Driver-guide gratuities
- International flights
- Laundry
- Personal travel transport
- Porterage
- Telephone bill
- Visas
How to get there
Recommended Airports
Jomo Kenyatta International Airport
11 km
Transfer included
Arrival by airplane
Please book your flight to arrive at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (NBO). Transfer from and to the airport is included. Ultimate Africa Expeditions will pick you up from the airport.
Cancellation Policy
- A reservation requires a deposit of 14% of the total price.
- The deposit is non-refundable, if the booking is cancelled.
- The rest of the payment should be paid 7 days before arrival.
For this organizer you can guarantee your booking through BookAllSafaris.com. All major credit cards supported.