Masai Mara
Kenya's most famous reserve, where the Mara River crossings peak from July to October and big cat density is among Africa's highest.
Wildlife species
Works offline
Languages
Offline maps
Inside the Masai Mara app
A dedicated app for just this park — a complete offline wildlife guide, maps and ranger tips, built to work deep in the park where there is no signal. Download it before you go and use it the whole trip.
484 animals
A full illustrated wildlife guide with photos, calls and field facts for the species you will actually see here.
Works with no signal
The guide, maps and your sightings all work completely offline — download once before you set off.
Offline GPS maps
See exactly where you are and navigate the park confidently, even where there is no mobile network at all.
Self-drive routes
The best drives and loops for this park, plus gate times and camp information to plan each day.
Track your safari
Log every sighting and build your own species list — see how many animals you have spotted over the years.
8 languages
Available in English, Dutch, German, French, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese and more.
The Big Five
Meet the Big Five
Plus every bird and reptile in the park — 484 species in all — each with photos and field notes, so you know exactly what you are looking at.
Big Five
Lion
Famous prides — among the highest lion densities on Earth.
Big Five
Leopard
Work the riverine forest along the Mara and Talek at dawn.
Big Five
Elephant
Family herds roam the open grasslands and marsh edges.
Rare
Black rhino
A small, closely guarded population — a special sighting.
Big Five
Buffalo
Common across the reserve; old bulls hold the thickets.
Plan your visit
Know before you go
Best time
Jul–Oct
River-crossing season — though the Mara’s big cats are world-class all year.
Getting there
Fly or drive
Reachable by a scenic self-drive or a short regional flight from the nearest hub.
Health
Malaria area
Risk is lower at altitude, but prophylaxis is usually advised.
Self-drive
Gates & times
Gates open at sunrise and close at sunset sharp; plan your loop around them.
“I have driven these parks for years and still open the app at every junction — knowing which road leads to which waterhole, and logging every sighting, completely changed how we travel.”
A Safari Guy regular
In short — Masai Mara map
- 305 km of road across 18 named routes, 1 of them tarred.
- 6 entrances: Sekenani Gate, Talek Gate and Musiara Gate (+3).
- 13 camps and lodges inside the park, 5 with a shop.
- Best route for wildlife: Oloololo Gate – Mara Serena Road — elephant, zebra and giraffe.
Masai Mara map: the roads, gates and camps
There are 305 km of drivable road inside Masai Mara, split into eighteen named routes. Only one of them is tarred — the other eighteen are gravel, which is what decides whether you need clearance or simply time.
Six entrances let you in: Sekenani Gate, Talek Gate, Musiara Gate, Oloolaimutia Gate, Sand River Gate and Oloololo Gate. Which one you use decides your first hour, because the distance from each gate to the best early roads is not the same.
Inside there are thirteen camps and lodges, among them Keekorok Lodge, Mara Serena Safari Lodge, Governors Camp, Little Governors Camp, Fig Tree Camp, Ashnil Mara Camp, Sarova Mara Game Camp and Rekero Camp. Of those, five have a shop.
The animals our road data flags most often here are lion, giraffe, elephant, zebra and Thomson’s gazelle. The route that scores highest of all is Oloololo Gate – Mara Serena Road over its 26.4 km, and that is where we would send you first.
What the paper map at the gate will not tell you is which of those eighteen routes is worth your morning. Our offline map rates every road separately for mammals, birds and landscape, and names the species recorded along it. It keeps working where there is no signal, which across Masai Mara is most of it.
The Mara is a continuation of Tanzania’s Serengeti, separated only by an international border the wildlife ignores. Between July and October it hosts the climax of the Great Migration: roughly two million wildebeest, zebra and gazelle thunder across the Mara River, lions and crocodiles waiting.
But the Mara delivers year-round. The reserve has one of the highest densities of large predators on the continent — lion, leopard, cheetah, hyena and the occasional African wild dog. The open plains make for spectacular sightings.
Self-driving is generally not advised: the park is a network of tracks rather than roads, and a local guide will read the bush far better than any first-time visitor. Hot air balloon safaris at dawn are world-famous.
The offline app
Inside the Masai Mara app
Your offline companion for Masai Mara — everything below keeps working with no phone signal, once you’ve downloaded the park.
- Offline maps & live GPS — detailed maps with your position, camps, gates, picnic spots and points of interest.
- 18 roads, each with an in-depth guide to the landscape and wildlife along the way.
- 13 rest camps & campsites — facilities, tips and what to expect at each.
- Wildlife encyclopedia — 484 species of mammal, bird and reptile, with photos, ID tips and where to find them.
- Safari logger — record every sighting with species, location and time.
- Achievements & insights — earn badges and track your own safari stats.
- Available in 8 languages — English, Afrikaans, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese and Italian.
See it in action
Subscriptions
Made for how you travel
Every subscription unlocks the offline maps, the full road & camp guides, the wildlife encyclopedia and the safari logger. Take a single park for the length of your trip, or the whole of Africa:
- Weekly — perfect for a one-off trip, when the safari is part of a bigger holiday.
- Monthly — for the enthusiasts who get into the parks regularly.
- Yearly — for the true safari fanatics, and the best value at under €2 / $2 per month.
- Africa subscription — monthly or yearly, and it unlocks every park we cover in Africa, from Kruger to the Serengeti.
🔒 Your sightings are yours to keep. Everything you log stays on your device and remains available even if your subscription ends.
Camps and lodges
Keekorok Lodge · Mara Serena Safari Lodge · Governors Camp · Little Governors Camp · Fig Tree Camp · Ashnil Mara Camp · Sarova Mara Game Camp · Rekero Camp · Entim Camp · Mara Intrepids Camp · Naibor Camp · Ngenche Safari Camp · Ilkeliani Camp
Plan your trip
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between the Masai Mara and the Serengeti?
They are the same ecosystem split by a border. The Mara is far smaller and the game is more concentrated, which makes for shorter drives and quicker sightings; the Serengeti is vast and takes days to cross. The migration spends roughly July to October in the Mara and the rest of the year in Tanzania.
Where are the best big cat sightings in the Masai Mara?
The Mara Triangle in the west and the Musiara and Talek areas hold the reserve’s best-known lion prides, and the Mara has one of the highest cheetah densities in Africa. Leopard are most reliable along the riverine forest of the Talek and Mara rivers.
Do you have to go on a guided game drive in the Masai Mara?
Most visitors do, and the reserve is built around lodge-based guiding, but the road network is mapped: 18 routes with distances and driving times, so you can follow along and know exactly where you are.
How many camps are there in the Masai Mara?
Thirteen camps and lodges, from large lodges like Keekorok and Mara Serena to small tented camps such as Rekero, Naibor and Entim.
