Maasai Mara

• 48 Hours in Nairobi
• Kenyan Golfing Experience
• The Great Wildebeest Migration
• Being an Expat in Nairobi

More Related Articles...

On the eastern coast of Africa, spanning on the equator, Kenya offers great topographical diversity from snow-capped mountains to granite hills and deserts and forests. It will be difficult to find such diversity in any other single country. The diversity extends to its people too with forty different tribes including the proud and beautiful red-clad Masai, who continue to have a semi-nomadic lifestyle of cattle herding along Kenya’s southern border.

There is so much to do and see in Kenya, offering endless prospects for discovering, adventure and relaxation. Come to explore its great wilderness, beautiful coastal areas, highlands and mountains, huge lakes, modern cities or forests and desert.

Places to visit in Kenya

Mount Kenya

This second highest peak of Africa, standing 17,058ft feet high, with its snow covered series of peaks makes an awe-inspiring sight. The local Kikuyu people regard it as the empire of Ngai. Usually, all Kikuyu homes were built to face this sacred peak. Though the 5199-meter summit is very challenging, any fit trekker can reach the peak of Point Lenana (4985m). It takes 3 to 5 days through a fascinating world of forests, wildlife, and unique mountain vegetation including podocarpus and groundsel, and finally one of the world’s most rare sights, the equatorial snow!

Even if you decide not to go trekking, you can enjoy cool highlands surrounding its base. The forests are ideal for game viewing, including buffalo, black rhinos, Sykes and Colobus monkeys, elephants, leopards, the elusive Bongo antelopes and there are crystal clear mountain streams that abound with trout.

Maasai Mara Game Reserve

The Maasai Mara Game Reserve, spread over200 sq miles of open plains, woodlands and forest is generally considered to be Africa’s greatest wildlife reserve. The gigantic grassland plains are dotted with herds of Gazelle, Giraffe, Zebra, and Topi. The Acacia forests contain plentiful of bird life and monkeys, while buffaloes and elephants lurch in the wide Musiara Swamp. The Mara and Talek rivers overflow with crocodiles and hippos. From July to October, the world’s largest migration of animals is witnessed in Mara. The promising rains in the North with the resultant fresh life giving grass prompts more than 1.3 million wild beasts together into a single colossal herd. The Mara is known as the Kingdom of Lions and these majestic and potent hunters dominate these grasslands. Cheetahs are also widespread in the Mara, as are hyena and smaller predators like jackals.

The Mara is possibly the best serviced of all Kenyan parks and reserves with wide ranging accommodation to suit any budget. Most lodges and camps recommend walks and balloon safaris.

Amboseli National Park

Spread over more than 400 sq kms, the park goes to meet Tanzania on its southern border.  It is renowned for its large herds of elephants. Known as the land of freely roaming giants, it also houses herds of other wild beasts like zebras and impalas grazing on its open plains.