The Great Migration Photo Safari

The great migration photo safari starts with the group meeting up at our hotel in Nairobi for a first-night dinner and a chance to meet your fellow travellers. The hotel that we use has been chosen is for its position between the international airport where you will arrive and the domestic terminal of Wilson Airport which you depart to the Masai Mara from the following morning.

We head to Wilson airport early in the morning to board our private chartered flight to the Masai Mara. We have made the decision to charter all of our flights to maximise the time that we have and also to allow for extra baggage and camera gear for the group.

The flight takes approximately one hour and then we will land at Ol Okiombo airstrip where we will be met by our team of drivers and guides in the customised Pangolin game viewers. We have three vehicles with a maximum of four guests plus one guide in each. The photo hosts will rotate through the vehicles during the safari giving you a chance to learn and receive photo advice from each of them throughout the trip.

Mara Bush Camp is chosen primarily for its location and we will spend plenty of time out in the Masai Mara National Reserve photographing in the areas surrounding the camp. The location is ideal for getting to the wildebeest and zebra crossings for which the Mara is so famous. There are several popular crossing points close to camp.

The crossings themselves (as well as the migration route) are unpredictable…it’s nature! We do however stack the odds in our favour by being in the right location at the right time of the year with amazing guides who know The Masai Mara intimately. Any operator who guarantees crossings is not to be trusted in our opinion which is why we don’t. We have an excellent”hit rate” and will always do our level best to get you those shots that you crave.

The tents in the camp are a good size and very comfortable with ensuite bathrooms at the rear and a private seating area at the front. The staff are fantastic as is the food so you will be taken very good care of.

The time in The Mara will involve full day game drives each day which always prove most productive photographically. Picnic lunches will be eaten out in the field – under a tree – in between the sightings.

Along with potential crossings the big cats are always a prime photographic target in the Mara and we will spend lots of time with the resident prides of lions as well as the resident leopards and cheetah coalitions. The open plains of The Mara always deliver!

Included in the safari package is a hot air balloon flight along The Mara River one morning. This form of flight is fantastic and a must-do so we have decided to included it in the itinerary for everyone on this trip. Photographing as we skip along the trees metres away from soaring vultures and other birds of prey is quite simply stunning. The control that pilots have is incredible and the Governors Balloons are the only ones that spend the majority of the flight directly over the Mara River. After we land in the Mara Triangle we are treated to a full champagne breakfast at the foot of the escarpment overlooking The Masai Mara. Its an awesome way to start the day. The drive back towards our camp takes us through more lion country!

In the evenings we will have use of a dedicated editing area with a projector and screen for sharing images among the group. The Pangolin Photo Hosts will be on hand to help with post-production and editing of images in these sessions.

This itinerary is the perfect amount of time for The Mara during migration season and should you want to add other destination we will be more than happy to organise this for you. We suggest perhaps visiting Samburu, neighbouring Tanzania, or perhaps ticking off another item on the bucket list with a gorilla trek in Rwanda or Uganda. Details of these extensions are in the add-ons tab above.