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The comparison

Road or flying?

Two ways of getting between the parks, and the honest differences between them. Not which one is better, but which one is better for the trip you are actually taking.

Anyone who answers this in one sentence has not asked how many of you there are or how long you have got, and those two numbers decide most of it. What follows is that arithmetic drawn out: who is in the vehicle, what each way costs one traveller and what it costs the party, how much of a week you spend in a park, and what you are allowed to bring. Where we would actually start on the phone is the grid near the bottom.

A pop-top safari four-wheel-drive, roof raised
A high-wing light aircraft of the kind that flies to bush airstrips

Private vehicle · yours all tripCamp's vehicle · shared under six

By road

The country counts

One vehicle and one driver-guide for the whole trip. The Rift Valley, the tea and the towns are part of it rather than something you fly over.

Game-viewing daysThree of seven

Between parksHalf a day

How many of you
2 travelling · 4 seats spare · private either way

Flying

The parks count

Fifty minutes instead of six hours. You trade the country in between for two more days of game viewing, and about a third of your luggage.

Game-viewing daysFive of seven

Between parksUnder an hour

How many of you
2 seats to buy · you may share the camp vehicle

Road and flying compared

Getting there
By road: Half a day between parks, with the country going past the window
Flying: Under an hour to most airstrips, from Wilson Airport in Nairobi
What you see in between
By road: The Rift Valley escarpment, the tea and the towns, which is the trip either side of the parks
Flying: The country from three thousand feet, and then nothing until you land
Your vehicle
By road: Yours for the whole trip, and we seat six in it whatever the car will take
Flying: The camp’s vehicle at the far end, shared with other guests unless you are six
Your guide
By road: One guide from Nairobi to the last park, who learns what you want to see
Flying: A new guide at each camp, each of them deep in their own piece of country
Cost
By road: The lower of the two, and the gap widens with party size
Flying: Higher, because you pay for the seat and usually for a smaller camp beside the strip
Luggage
By road: Whatever fits, within reason: every bag rides in the back, and a pop-top roof leaves no rack
Flying: 23kg in a soft bag, no hard cases and no wheeled frames, plus one personal item
Best for
By road: Ten nights or more, families, groups, and anyone who wants the journey to count
Flying: Short trips, honeymoons, and itineraries that reach two distant regions in one week

One

Who is in the vehicle

The Land Cruiser will take six or seven. We seat six, because that is what makes a week in it comfortable, and at six the vehicle is private however you arrived. Travel as fewer than six and fly in, and the camp vehicle meeting you at the airstrip may have other guests already in it. The seat plan at the top of this page is drawn for the number you pick; this is what its marks mean.

  • Your partyOne filled seat for each of you, up to six.

  • A seat we cannot promiseEmpty in your own vehicle. On a fly-in trip the camp may fill it.

  • The driver-guideNever one of the six, on either sort of trip.

Change the number travelling in the panel at the top of this page and the seats follow it. Six is where we stop, and it is a house rule rather than a limit: the vehicle will take six or seven. Six travelling therefore means a private vehicle whichever way you arrived. Under six on a fly-in trip, the vehicle waiting at the airstrip belongs to the camp, and you may be sharing it.

Two

What it costs each of you

A vehicle and a guide are bought once and then divided between however many of you climb in. A bush seat is bought again for every traveller. So the road line falls away as the party grows and the flying line does not move at all.

This is the shape of the arithmetic, not a quote. By road you divide one vehicle and one driver-guide between however many of you there are, so the line falls away. Flying, every traveller buys a seat, so the line does not move. Somewhere between 2 and 3 travelling the two cross, and from 3 up the road is cheaper per head. The axis carries no numbers because we will not put a transport price on a page. For a real figure on your dates and your party, talk to a travel designer.

Three

What it costs the whole party

The same arithmetic from the other end. The road bar is the same height however many of you there are, because the car and the driver-guide do not get more expensive when more people sit in them; the flying total climbs one seat at a time.

Both charts are here because either one alone would mislead you. Per person, the road looks unanswerable by the time there are four of you, but a couple is not paying per person, they are paying the whole bill, and by road that bill is a private vehicle and a private guide bought at full price for two. Read together: the road total barely moves from one traveller to six, while the sixth air seat costs exactly what the first one did. Indexed shape only, with no currency and no quote. Ask for a real figure on your dates.

Four

What a week actually holds

Seven nights is not seven days in a park either way. Drive, and three of them are game days and four are spent moving; fly, and it is five and two. A transfer day is not a wasted day, and the escarpment is a reason people drive in the first place, but it is not a day in a park either.

By road

3game days
4on the move

Flying in

5game days
2on the move

The same 7-night trip, split two ways. A transfer day is not a wasted day. The escarpment, the tea and the Rift are the reason some people drive in the first place. But it is not a day in a park either, and this is the trade in its plainest form: fly and the week holds five good days rather than three.

Five

What you can bring

One side of this is an airline specification and the other is a judgement, and they are deliberately not the same shape. Flying means a soft bag, 23kg, plus one personal item. Driving means whatever fits, within reason, which is a smaller sentence than whatever fits.

Flying in: a specification

Weight
23kg, roughly 50lb
Shape
Soft-sided bag only. No hard cases, no wheeled frames.
Plus
One personal item.

We confirm the allowance for your specific flights in writing before you pack.

By road: a judgement

Whatever fits, within reason.

Which is a real limit, not a generous one. With six aboard, every bag goes in the back, and there is no roof rack to fall back on because the roof pops up.

These two sides do not match, and that is the honest shape of it: one is a number an airline sets, the other is a space and a judgement. Anyone quoting you a kilo figure for a road safari is guessing.

Six

Where the pattern breaks

Every other block on this page splits into two columns, road on one side and flying on the other. This one refuses to, because open sides are the lodge's decision and not a consequence of how you got there.

Seven

What we would say on the phone

Trip length down the side, party size across the top, and the position we would open with in each of the twelve squares. It is a lean rather than a rule, and the longest trips stop choosing altogether.

What Holiday Bazaar would recommend, by trip length and party size. Each cell gives a verdict and the reason for it. The column tint shows which way that party size leans overall; the words in the cell are the actual recommendation.
Trip length1–2 travellingleans flying3–4 travellinghonestly either5–6 travellingleans road
4–5 nightsFly itTwo people paying for a whole vehicle is an expensive way to spend a short week.Lean flyingOn a trip this short the transfer days cost you more than the seats do.Drive itSix air seats bought to save one day is the most expensive day of the trip.
6–8 nightsFly itThe extra nights buy game days, and for two the seats still undercut the vehicle.Honestly eitherThe square where the arithmetic genuinely ties. Decide on temperament, not on cost.Drive itA vehicle divided by six is where the road stops competing and simply wins.
9–12 nightsFly, mostlyLong enough that one driven leg earns its place. The rest is only distance.Lean roadThe vehicle divided by four gets cheaper every extra day you keep hold of it.Drive, mostlyWith a single leg flown where the map is nothing but kilometres.
13 nights or moreDo bothAt this length the country in between stops being a cost and becomes a reason.Drive itLong trips are where one guide who already knows you pays you back.Do bothLong enough that the coast hop is worth flying and everything else is worth driving.

leans flying honestly either leans road

The tint is the lean of the whole column, not the verdict of the cell, which is why the flying column and the road column both end on do both. Read the words. And read them as what we would say on the phone: a starting position, not a rule, because a photographer with kit and a family with a five-year-old will get different answers out of the same square.

Eight

Most good trips do both

The binary the last seven blocks have been building is not really one. Drive the leg that is worth driving and fly the leg that is only distance. That is what most of the itineraries we are proudest of actually do.

  1. Nairobi
  2. Rift Valley
  3. Maasai Mara
  4. The coast

Nairobi to the Rift Valley to the Maasai Mara is driven. The Maasai Mara to the coast is flown.

driven flown

Most of the trips we are proudest of do both. Drive the leg that is worth driving, the escarpment, the Rift, the long climb down into the Mara, and fly the leg that is only distance.

Questions we are actually asked

Choice-shaped ones. How each mode works on its own is answered on its own page.

We are six. Does that change the answer?
It settles most of it. Six is where we stop filling a vehicle, so a party of six travels privately by road whatever else you decide. Six seats on a bush flight is also six fares, which is the point at which the difference between the two modes stops being marginal and starts being the budget.
Is a fly-in camp automatically the better camp?
No. Fly-in camps do tend to be smaller and to sit deeper inside a conservancy, which is a real difference and is priced as one. But several of the camps we rate most highly are reached by road, and an airstrip on the doorstep tells you about the logistics rather than about the guiding, the beds or the food.
Do we get the same guide either way?
No, and it is the trade-off people notice most. Drive, and one guide takes you from Nairobi to the last park, learning across the week what you actually want to see. Fly, and you meet a new guide at every camp, each of them knowing their own piece of country better than anyone passing through it could.
We photograph seriously. Does one of them get us a better vehicle?
Not directly. Whether you sit in a pop-top or an open-sided vehicle is the lodge’s decision rather than a consequence of how you arrived, and most lodges now run open-sided. What the choice does decide is whether the vehicle is private: at six it always is, and a private vehicle is what lets the car stay with a sighting.
At what group size does driving win on cost?
It is arithmetic rather than a threshold. A bush seat is priced per person, so it multiplies with every traveller; a vehicle and its guide are priced per vehicle however many of you get in. Each person you add therefore widens the gap in the road’s favour. Where it crosses depends on your route and your season, so we quote both.

Keep reading

The two pages this one compares

This page is the choice. The detail, the routes we drive and how a bush flight actually works from Wilson Airport, lives on the two mode pages, and each of them argues its own side on purpose.

Tell us the dates and how many of you

Those two numbers answer most of this page. We will price your route both ways and say which one we would book. A reply within one working day.

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