Safari in Kenya

This is the best lodge in what is, for me, one of the best safari parks in Kenya. Named after Elsa the lion, of Born Free Fame, the lodge sits on an outcrop with simply incredible views over Meru. Owned by Kenya-based Elewana Collection, it’s undeniably pricey – rooms start at around USD $950 per night and climb steeply from there – but worth a night or two if your budget can stretch that far. If that’s beyond your means I can also recommend Meru Camp and there are cheaper options in the nearby town of Maua.

The wildebeest migration is one of the world’s greatest natural phenomena, and watching the herds dodge hungry crocodiles as they surge across the Mara River is a staple of Kenya safari.

The migration moves into the Masai Mara from Tanzania’s Serengeti between June and October. This is by far the busiest time and place of the year, so expect crowds, higher prices and limited availability.

If you’d rather see the migration untroubled by crowds, I recommend you look at Tanzania instead.

I can highly recommend Maili Saba. It has a picturesque location overlooking the Great Rift Valley and volcano region, with lovely permanent tents each with en-suites and balcony, and all very nicely decorated. There is a communal pool and outside gazebos for relaxing. The main dining room and lounging area is stunning with striking cathedral ceiling and beautiful decor.

The food is absolutely outstanding and the staff are warm, friendly and go out of their way to assist their guests.

The first time I visited was a complete surprise organised by my Kenyan partner, and I've included it in our tour itineraries ever since.

One of the great success stories of Kenya safari has been the emergence of networks of conservancies, usually adjacent to the better known national parks. These are community-run or privately-operated protected areas, run for the benefit of wildlife and local communities.

In the Masai Mara, the Nashulai Maasai Conservancy is particularly interesting, as it’s the only one that was 100% established by local Maasai and the only one where the Maasai remain in their homes within the conservancy. There are two accommodations in the conservancy, the small and exclusive Wageni camp and the mid-market Oldarpoi. It's also possible to visit as a day visitor, but you must still book ahead.

In the same area I can also highly recommend Mara North, Naboisho, and Ol Dereski; you’ll likely have an amazing time in any of them.

Mara North is perhaps the best known conservancy in the Masai Mara, and Offbeat Mara is one of my favourite camps in the entire place.

It's a small, un-showy camp of just seven tents including two family tents. In addition to the standard game drives you can do night drives, guided bush walks, horse riding, hot air balloon flights and even do some Maasai running coaching!

If you’ve ever wondered what the hide of a rhino feels like, wanted to experience a safari at night or dreamed of running (or riding) in the wild, open air of a safari reserve, head to Ol Pejeta Conservancy. The conservancy is in the Laikipia region, at the foothills of Mount Kenya. The sanctuary is the largest in East Africa to host black rhino, as well as the world’s last two remaining white northern rhino. Ol Pejeta is also the only place in Kenya where you can see chimpanzees. Conservation is at its core, with several experiences available for intrepid safari-goers who want to do more than just watch the animals.

Those looking to get their hands dirty can join one of the one or two-week volunteer programmes and learn wildlife research and tracking, veterinary care and more of what goes on behind the scenes. The conservancy has several accommodation options from simple cottages to basic campsites and luxury tented eco-camps.

If elephants are your thing, you can’t do much better than Amboseli where herds of these magnificent beasts graze in the shadow of the equally magnificent Mt. Kilimanjaro.

By far the best place to stay is not in the park itself but 30km away at Campi ya Kanzi in the Kimana Community Wildlife Sanctuary, situated between Amboseli and Chyulu Hills.

It’s a very high-end Maasai-run camp that was set up to aid the local community and conservation projects. Its excellent location means you can see wildlife in the conservancy, Amboseli and Chyulu all from one base.

This camp in the Sera Conservancy, just north of the Samburu Reserve in northern Kenya occupies a stunning location in the semi-desert. Their specialism is a thrilling rhino tracking walking safari, probably my favourite place to see rhinos in all Kenya. I spent five days here and by the end still couldn’t decide if coming within ten metres of the steamroller-like rhinos was thrilling or simply terrifying!

In Tsavo West most of the accommodation is fairly expensive (unless you have your own camping gear in which case there are three spartan public campgrounds). A reasonably-priced option is the Kilaguni Serena Lodge – it’s far from a budget offering but the Serena collection is generally pretty good value. If you have the budget to blow, Finch Hattons is the most exclusive camp in the park, with an eye watering price tag to match.

In my opinion the best way to experience a safari is to ditch the 4X4 and explore on foot. With a good tracker-guide you’ll see all the little things you’d otherwise miss if you’re stuck in a vehicle all day. Walking is often forbidden within state-run national parks but is usually allowed, even encouraged, in conservancies. If I had to pick a favourite place for a walking safari in Kenya it’d be Loita Hills without question. Although not far from the Masai Mara, Loita Hills is barely visited by tourists despite boasting superb and varied scenery, a lovely climate, very different wildlife to the lower savannah plains, and fascinating interactions with very traditional Maasai culture.

Also, while Kenya doesn’t really compete with the multi-day Tanzania trekking scene, some organised trekking may be found here, as well as in the Aberdares and around Mt. Kenya.

There’s only one lodge within the Kalama conservancy, immediately to the north of Samburu Reserve, and it’s likely going to be one of the most spectacular places you’ll ever stay. Built into, around and onto a huge granite outcrop, Saruni Samburu is almost invisible from a distance but the stunningly turned out rooms offer a cliff side view over what feels like half of northern Kenya.

Lewa, in the Laikipia plateau area, is perhaps the most famous of all Kenya’s conservancies. And for good reason: this is safari to order. Want to see a black rhino? No problem. One of the superb guides will manage to find one. Lions, cheetah, elephant. They are all found here in abundance.

And it’s not just the wildlife that’s outstanding. The landscape is cinematic in its scope. Rolling sun bleached grasslands, table flat acacia trees, meandering rivers and a backdrop of the glinting glaciers of Mt Kenya.

The other great thing about Lewa (and this is common to all the Laikipia area conservancies) is exclusivity. If you’re not a guest of one of the handful of lodges then you can’t go on a safari here.

Just north of the equator in far western Kenya, is Kakamega Forest — Kenya’s only tropical rainforest. The land here is wet, green and intensely cultivated with a mix of subsistence farming and large tea estates. In amongst all this though are a few pockets of the dense rainforests that once covered large parts of western Kenya.

The Kakamega Forest Reserve is a fine example of this kind of forest and interesting walking safaris here reveal bird and primate life that has more in common with the forests of Uganda and the Congo than anything you’ll see on safari in Kenya. Wander the forest’s network of trails and take in the huge variety of flora and fauna it supports, including hundreds of bird species, some of which are not found anywhere else.

In my opinion, Kakamega is one of the most delightful places in Kenya, but yet hardly any tourists know of its existence. It should be a must visit for any ornithologist or herpetologist. As well as birds, reptiles and primates, I found the visit to the old mine shaft to look for bats especially memorable.

Laikipia is known for its rhino conservation, but my own personal highlight in this area wasn’t the rhinos. Rather it was the day I spent with a biologist in very close proximity to around 200 habituated baboons. Having a huge male baboon shove its way past you as it bares its teeth was an experience easily on a par with gorilla and chimpanzee encounters in East Africa. The other nice thing about this particular experience is that it doesn’t involve staying inside an expensive conservancy but rather you are hosted by a grassroots Maasai womens’ project. And hardly anyone – even other Kenyans – know about it!

A world away from the African safari image of savannah grasses and drooling sunsets, the Aberdares consists of two different ecosystems. A high, cold and often bleak moorland and, below that, dense tangled montane jungle.

The wildlife here is a little different and a little harder to spot. But elephants are very common as are big grumpy buffalo. There are also montane species you won’t see anywhere else including bongo antelope, bush pigs and melanistic leopard and serval.

Unusually among Kenyan national parks, you can also get out of the vehicle here and enjoy long, lonely hikes over the moorlands: I have really enjoyed the sensation of trudging across the bleak moorlands in cold afternoon drizzle while always keeping a beady eye out for roaming buffalo.

The park also has some history. In 1952, a young English lady named Elizabeth was staying at the famed Treetops Lodge here (today’s version is actually a reconstruction of the original) when it was announced that her father had died. And so it was, that on a remote Kenyan mountain slope, that young lady became Queen Elizabeth II. Many years later her eldest grandson, and future king, proposed to Kate Middleton in a small wooden fishing cabin in a spot not so far away from where his grandmother became Queen.

If time allows I highly recommend you find a couple of days to wash away the safari dust on Kenya’s palm-fringed coastline. The country has many beautiful beach destinations but the standard itineraries tend to focus on Diani, south of Mombasa. My vote goes for the underrated Lamu archipelago, and in particular the old Swahili trading town of Lamu, which always leaves me enchanted.

Another of western Kenya’s unsung wildlife highlights is the seriously off the beaten track Ruma National Park.

This park is a mixture of dense forest and thick, tall tropical grassland where large numbers of rare, and very beautiful, Rothschild giraffe can be found, as well as the massive, elegant roan antelope. On any visit here you will see plenty of these two creatures.

What you almost certainly won’t see however are the park’s rhino population. Rangers have told me there are quite a few here – all translocated from less secure areas – but in my three visits I’ve never seen any and the rangers tell me you have to be very lucky to see one.

But there’s something else you won’t see here either: other tourists. Once again I think that each time I have been I have had the entire park to myself and this makes for a very compelling reason to make the trek out here.

There are no facilities for tourists within the park, and only a few specialist operators will offer Ruma in a safari itinerary.

Kenya’s smallest national park, Saiwa Swamp, out in the far west near the farming town of Kitale, is another of Kenya’s underrated delights.

The park encompasses one small area of swamp surrounded by farmland and is home to a rare population of sitatunga antelope, an unusual semi-aquatic species that in Kenya can only be reliably seen here.

The park also offers stunning birdlife. My favourite thing about this park is that you can only visit on foot, following the walking trails and boardwalks that run through the park. It’s a delight to break free of the safari vehicles and stretch the legs.

In addition you will almost certainly have the entire park to yourself. I’ve been three times and never seen another person here. One word of warning though: Be careful of flash floods during heavy thunderstorms. I was once caught out by one of these: the waters rose very quickly, drowning the footpaths and I had to wade thigh-deep back across the marsh while trying very hard not to think about all the creatures that might live in a remote African swamp…

There are no facilities for tourists within the park, but nearby Kitale has plenty of fairly-priced hotels.

Bursting up above the hot red plains of Tsavo and Amboseli National Parks, the Chyulu Hills are a little visited, little known paradise of rolling green hills and forest.

The wildlife can be a bit hit and miss but there are still plenty of grazers around plus there are opportunities to mingle with Maasai herdsmen, walk across pretty landscapes and visit lava tubes.

If you’re looking for a quick escape from Nairobi then Lake Naivasha and the neighbouring Hells Gate National Park is just a couple of hours from the city and a great place for a quick wildlife fix.

Lake Naivasha is a huge freshwater lake famed for its birdlife and hippos while Hells Gate is a small savanna park with plentiful antelope, zebra, giraffe and baboons. The nice thing about this park is that you can walk or cycle through it (very battered bikes can be hired) which allows you to get close to wildlife without the barriers of a vehicle. If you’re a climber then you can also arrange to scale some of the rock spires within the park.

There’s no facilities for tourists within Hells Gate but a massive array of places to stay and eat around the shores of Lake Victoria.

I recommend you avoid visiting during weekends, when it can seem as if half of Nairobi is out here.

If you're ready to test your adventurous side, look north to the Chalbi Desert, east of the stunning and remote Lake Turkana where dry, cracked earth meets lush oases surrounded by palm trees and herds of zebra, giraffe, ostrich, oryx and hyena come to drink.

This arid part of northern Kenya is largely unvisited, even by domestic visitors. It’s unique, otherworldly landscape is believed to be formed from a lake that dried thousands of years ago. You’ll find volcanic hills in the background and desert wildlife in the sand dunes.

Thrill seekers can take part in adrenaline-filled activities like sandboarding and dune racing in 4WD vehicles alongside local residents on camelback, nights spent stargazing and perhaps even a swim in Lake Turkana, itself in a national park with good game sighting opportunities. It’s far from easy to get to Chalbi — it’s 425km north of Nairobi — so expect to fly in and then use a local driver who knows the roads and terrain (and an appropriate hardy vehicle).

Just inland of the popular Diani Beach, Shimba Hills makes for a brilliant short safari from the coast. The densely vegetated park has a large and visible elephant population and is the only place in Kenya where the stately sable antelope can be seen.

There’s also plentiful warthogs, baboons, vervet monkeys, buffalo and some introduced giraffes. Half and full day safaris can be easily organised from most of the beach resorts south of Mombasa. It’s a good bet for a family safari.