We are arriving into Nairobi at 6am late July and have 6 days/5 nights for a safari before we need to be in Moshi to begin our Kili climb. We have narrowed down the options to two possible itineraries and are having trouble deciding which is best.

Option 1:

• Day 1: Drive Nairobi to Masai Mara
• Day 2: Masai Mara full day game drive
• Day 3: Masai Mara to Northern Serengeti
• Day 4: Northern Serengeti full day game drive, stay central Serengeti
• Day 5: Central Serengeti to Ngorongoro
• Day 5: Ngorongoro morning game drive, afternoon drive to Moshi

Option 2:

• Day 1: Nairobi – transfer at Namanga border to Manyara NP
• Day 2: Ngorongoro game drive, drive to central Serengeti
• Day 3: Central Serengeti game drive, then overnight in Northen Serengeti
• Day 4: Northern Serengeti full day game drive
• Day 5: Either drive or fly to Arusha then onto Moshi

We’d like to maximize seeing wildlife and minimize the extra time in the car driving (I know, hard in either scenario). We have spent a lot of time traveling around the world but his is our first time in Africa and want to make the most out our time, but not at the sacrifice of trying to do too much in too short of time.

We’ve heard various things from different TO’s about where the migration may be during the last week of July. One says there will be no animals in Masai Mara at that time (but this could potentially be a self-serving comment as they only operate out of TZ). I’ve also seen a lot of advice to stick to one country, but perhaps with our specific constraints, doing both countries may make more sense.

It may have been ideal to fly into Arusha or Kilimanjaro but due to prior travel plans, we ended up booking through Nairobi, so we cannot change this.

Thanks in advance for any advice!