Kenya or Tanzania for a first safari: the month decides more than the country
- Published
- 6 August 2026
- Reading
- 4 min read
- Where
- Masai Mara and the Serengeti
- Prices checked
- 15. Sep 2026.
Kenya is recommended as the cheaper one, and in the migration months it is not. The difference between the Mara and the Serengeti is the month, where you sleep and how far you drive.
The Masai Mara and the Serengeti are one ecosystem cut by a border, and the herds cross it. The usual advice is that Kenya is the cheaper first safari, but that holds for only half the year: from July to December a day in the Mara costs more than a day in the Serengeti. So the month decides, not the country.
A day in the park, per person
From July — the Serengeti, concession included, is cheaper per day than the Mara. Mara: a 12-hour ticket. Serengeti: a 24-hour ticket, concession only for a night inside the park. The Ngorongoro crater descent is in none of these prices.
From January to June it is the other way round and close: the Mara is slightly dearer than the bare Serengeti fee, and cheaper as soon as you sleep inside the Serengeti and add the concession. Tanzania also has a line Kenya does not — the road from Arusha runs through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, charged separately per person, and going down into the crater itself is another €255 per vehicle, split between those sitting in it.
The road and the size
From Nairobi the Mara is five and a half to six and a half hours by road, depending on the gate, or an hour's flight from Wilson Airport — and that is the whole journey, with nothing to pay on the way. To the Serengeti by road from Arusha you go through Ngorongoro, so that fee comes with the journey. The Serengeti is ten times the size of the Mara, 14,763 square kilometres against 1,510, so you also drive further inside it: the north of the park, where the herds are in the migration season, is quickest reached from Arusha by a flight to the Kogatende airstrip.
The decision by month
January to March: Kenya. The Mara is at its low price and dry, it is close, and it all fits into five days; the herds are in the southern Serengeti then, but a first safari does not depend on them. July to October, when the herds cross the Mara river, the same river runs through the northern Serengeti: a day in the park is cheaper there, but getting there means a flight. With ten days and the migration in mind, choose Tanzania; with five days, Kenya — and accept the price from July.
Kenya, in brief
What now
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