Heathrow to Nairobi direct, then the Rift Valley. Tailor-made Big Five safaris across the Masai Mara, Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater, arranged by the Nairobi company that runs them.
Every itinerary is quoted individually in sterling.
The journey from Britain is about as easy as long-haul gets. British Airways flies direct from London Heathrow to Nairobi, and the airline puts the southbound leg at approximately eight hours and forty minutes, with the return at around nine hours and twenty minutes. Kenya Airways flies the route too: Heathrow remains its main London gateway, and it has added flights from London Gatwick. There is almost no time-zone penalty either — Kenya is two or three hours ahead depending on whether you are on GMT or BST.
Those block times are the carriers’ own published figures, and carriers, departure times and schedules all change. Confirm the current Heathrow and Gatwick services with the airline before you book rather than treating any direct flight as a fixture.
British safari brochures are usually written in London and delivered by a company in Nairobi. We are the company in Nairobi. When you ask which camp has the better hide, or whether a nine-year-old will cope with the crater road, the answer comes from someone who was there last month rather than from a supplier note.
Term dates in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland do not line up, and neither do local authorities within them. Rather than publishing a generic half-term chart, we ask for your own school’s dates and build backwards from those, because the good Mara camps for October half-term are gone by the previous winter.
The classic British safari holiday is not one park, it is a line drawn across two countries: the Masai Mara, then over the border into the Serengeti, then down into the Ngorongoro Crater. Ten days is the shortest sensible way to do all three without spending your holiday in transit — long enough for the leopard to turn up, short enough to fit a half-term with a couple of days to spare.
You travel in your own vehicle with your own guide throughout. There is no coach, no fixed group and no compulsory shopping stop.
Quoted individually, in sterling
We do not publish a headline price because the honest one changes with the season, the camps and the size of your party. Tell us your dates and we will send a written sterling quote, itemised, with nothing added at the end.
British travellers are trained to ask about ATOL and ABTA before they pay a deposit, and they should. Here is the straight answer rather than a reassuring one.
ATOL protects flight-inclusive package holidays sold by businesses holding a UK Civil Aviation Authority licence. We are a Nairobi ground operator and we do not sell you your international flights, so a land-only safari booked direct with us is not an ATOL-protected package. We will not describe it as one, and you should be wary of any overseas operator that does.
Book your flights separately, where the airline or your flight agent carries the protection. Take out UK travel insurance that includes cancellation, curtailment and medical repatriation, and check that safari activities are covered. Where you pay by credit card, Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act may give you additional recourse on qualifying transactions — check the position with your card issuer.
Before any money moves you get a written itinerary, an itemised sterling quote, our deposit and balance schedule and our cancellation terms. If your insurer or your employer needs a supplier confirmation letter, ask and we will send one.
| UK holiday window | Season in East Africa | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Summer holidays | Peak dry season | The Mara River crossings. Also the most contested dates in the calendar — the camps with river frontage are typically booked out a year ahead. |
| October half-term | Late dry season | Our quiet favourite. The herds are drifting back south, the light is superb, and there are noticeably fewer vehicles at a sighting than in August. |
| Christmas and New Year | Short green season | Warm, green and busy with British families escaping the dark. Book early for the crater lodges; the plains are lush rather than dusty. |
| February half-term | Calving season | Half a million wildebeest calves born in the southern Serengeti over a few weeks, and the predators that follow them. The strongest big-cat viewing of the year. |
| Easter | Start of the long rains | We are candid about this one: the plains can be difficult in April. If Easter is your only window we route you to the crater and the conservancies instead. |
Term and half-term dates vary by local authority and by nation — England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland do not share a calendar, and neighbouring councils do not always align. Work from your own school’s published dates rather than a generic one, and tell us those dates when you brief us.
British safari holidays are usually sold as a brochure product with a departure date attached. Ours are not. You get a private vehicle, one guide for the whole route, and an itinerary drafted against your dates — and because the vehicles and the guides are ours, a change of plan is a conversation rather than a re-costing exercise. The backbone this page is built around is our ten-day Kenya and Tanzania route, which we then lengthen, shorten or re-tier.
If you would rather look at finished trips before briefing us, the full Kenya safari range is a better starting point than a blank page. Treat them as shapes to react to rather than a menu to choose from — a finished trip usually lands somewhere between two of them.
The twin-centre holiday is a British habit and it suits this route unusually well, because the wildlife half is intense and early-rising and the island half is emphatically not. The fourteen-day version that finishes on Zanzibar gives you the Mara, the Serengeti and the crater, then a short flight east to Zanzibar for Stone Town, the spice farms and four nights on the reef.
Two practical notes for UK travellers. Return flights out of Zanzibar are straightforward to arrange, and because the island is administratively part of Tanzania, its immigration portal states that a traveller visiting the mainland and Zanzibar “will be allowed to visit both places without a need for a new Visa”. Insurance is the part that catches British travellers out: Zanzibar requires every foreign visitor to hold compulsory travel insurance bought from the Zanzibar Insurance Corporation, and the FCDO states that other international travel insurance policies will not be accepted — so an annual multi-trip UK policy does not satisfy Zanzibar, and you may be refused entry if you do not have the correct insurance. Confirm current requirements on the official portal before you book flights.
Price the same honeymoon through a UK tour operator and the difference tends to sit in the middle of the transaction rather than in the camps. What we actually change for a honeymoon is the property list: quieter camps, a vehicle that is yours alone, dinner laid somewhere other than the dining tent, and a beach finish so the trip ends slowly. The 11-day Kenya safari and Zanzibar honeymoon combo is a common shape for a honeymoon.
If flying a second time does not appeal, Diani Beach on the Kenyan coast is the alternative and works just as well as a place to stop moving. We will tell you which suits your dates rather than defaulting to the island.
October half-term is the strongest window in the British school year for a safari, and the one most likely to be left too late. It sits at the end of the dry season, the crowds have thinned since August, and the camps that genuinely suit families are still gettable if you ask by the spring. The 8-day classic family safari runs Ol Pejeta, Samburu, Lake Naivasha and then the Mara, with a boat ride on Lake Naivasha in the middle of the week; for a family trip we then choose lodges for space rather than for the view from reception. That is the published shape of the route rather than a fixed departure — check the current day-by-day on the tour page itself, and tell us what you would rather change.
For the summer holidays the constraint is not the wildlife, it is availability — camps with river frontage go a year ahead. Our guide to the Great Migration in Kenya explains what is happening on the Mara month by month, which is a more useful planning tool than a brochure calendar.
A tailor-made safari holiday should not spend every other day on the road. These views represent three different reasons to travel: the Mara for high-density wildlife, the Serengeti for seasonal herds and Amboseli for elephants beneath Kilimanjaro.
British Airways flies direct from London Heathrow to Nairobi, and the airline puts the southbound leg at approximately eight hours and forty minutes and the return at around nine hours and twenty minutes. Kenya Airways flies the route as well: Heathrow remains its main London gateway, and it has added flights from London Gatwick. Travellers from Manchester, Edinburgh, Birmingham and Glasgow connect either through London or through Amsterdam, Paris or a Gulf hub. Those block times are the airlines’ own published figures, and carriers, departure times and direct status all change, so please verify current flights with the airline at the time of booking. We meet you at Nairobi on arrival.
British passport holders need an Electronic Travel Authorisation (eTA) for Kenya, applied for online before travel. Tanzania requires a separate visa or e-visa for the Serengeti and Ngorongoro leg. Please verify current fees and processing times on the official Kenyan and Tanzanian government portals before you book flights.
You should understand exactly what does and does not apply. ATOL protection covers flight-inclusive package holidays sold by businesses that hold a UK Civil Aviation Authority licence. Nature Point Africa is a Nairobi-based ground operator and does not sell you your international flights, so a land-only safari booked direct with us is not an ATOL-protected package, and we will never claim otherwise. In practice UK travellers usually book their flights separately, which are protected by the airline or their own agent, take out UK travel insurance that includes cancellation and medical repatriation, and pay by credit card where Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act may apply. We are happy to put anything you need in writing before you pay a deposit.
The Mara River crossings usually run from July to October, which covers the English summer holidays and October half-term. The short green season around Christmas and the New Year is quieter and greener, and February half-term falls in the southern Serengeti calving season. Because school terms differ across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, we plan departures around your own school’s dates rather than a generic calendar.
Most UK safari companies do not own vehicles or employ guides in East Africa. They design the trip and then contract a Nairobi ground operator to run it, adding their margin on top. We are that ground operator, so you speak to the people who will actually be driving your vehicle and briefing your lodges. The trade-off is that you take on the flight booking and the financial protection arrangements yourself, which is why we set out plainly, above, what applies and what does not.
Send us your dates and your party and a Nairobi-based specialist will write back with a tailored, no-obligation itinerary and a sterling quote, normally within one working day.
Call or WhatsApp: +254 769 406 388
Email: info@naturepointafrica.com
Nairobi is two hours ahead of the UK in summer and three in winter, so a message sent during your working day is normally answered the same day.
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