Swagatam Tours Private Limited

Holidays of Africa

Kenya Tourism

• Introduction
Revered by anthropologists as the 'cradle of humanity', Kenya is wild and a little dangerous. If you're adventurous - and sensible - it promises the globe's most magnificent wildlife parks, unsullied beaches, thriving coral reefs, memorable mountainscapes and ancient Swahili cities.

The Swahili word safari (literally, journey) wouldn't mean much to most people if it wasn't for this East African adventure land. No matter how many Tarzan movies you've seen, nothing will prepare you for the annual mass migration of wildebeests in the Maasai Mara.

• When to Visit Kenya
The main tourist season is in January and February, since the hot, dry weather at this time of year is generally considered to be the most pleasant. It's also when Kenya's birdlife flocks to the Rift Valley lakes in the greatest numbers. June to September could be called the 'shoulder season' as the weather is still dry. The rains hit from March to May (and to a lesser extent from October to December). During these months things are much quieter - places tend to have rooms available and prices drop. The rains generally don't affect travellers' ability to get around.

• Attraction in Kenya
» Nairobi
Kenya's capital is cosmopolitan, lively, interesting and pleasantly landscaped. Its central business district is handily compact and it's a great place to tune into modern urban African life. Unfortunately, it's also a great place to get mugged. Security, especially at night, is a definite concern.

Often touted as the birthplace of humanity Nairobi has artefacts galore in some very classy museums. If you'd prefer to look at exhibits that aren't stuffed there are plenty of rhinos, snakes and giraffes roaming in parks around the city - some you can even feed!

» Amboseli National Park
At 392 sq km, Amboseli has huge herds of elephants, and to see a herd of them making their way sedately across the grassy plains, with Tanzania's Mt Kilimanjaro in the background, may be a real African cliche but it's an experience that certainly leaves a lasting impression.

» Lamu
Lamu is a place of fantasy and other-worldliness wrapped in a cloak of medieval romance. With an almost exclusively Muslim population, Kenya's remote and self-contained oldest living town has changed little in appearance or character over many centuries.

This once thriving port town is now a gloriously relaxed and relaxing destination. No other Swahili town, other than Zanzibar, can offer you such a cultural feast and uncorrupted traditional style of architecture - if you can ignore the TV aerials.

» Masai Mara National Reserve
The Mara is the most popular wildlife park in Kenya. Abounding with wildlife and joined to the Serengeti, this 320-sq-km reserve is anything but plain.Few visitors miss roaming at least part of its vast open savanna grasslands - or leaping out of the way of the annual wildebeest stampede.

The western border of the park is the spectacular Esoit Olooloo (Siria) Escarpment where the concentrations of wildlife are the highest. Lions are found in large prides everywhere and it's not unusual to see them hunt. Elephants, buffaloes, zebras, antelopes and hippos also exist in large numbers.

» Mombasa
The largest port on the coast of East Africa, Mombasa is hot, steamy and historical. Its earliest history dates back to the 12th century. Mombasa proper sprawls over Mombasa Island which is connected to the mainland both north and south of the city.

A Muslim haven for centuries, it was attacked by the Portuguese in 1505 and burnt to the ground. It was quickly rebuilt only to be reduced to rubble again by an embattled Mombasan ruler during the long fight against the Portuguese. Mombasa's Old Town is testament to this tumultuous era.

• Off the Beaten Track
» Aberdare National Park
This park encloses the moorland and high forest of the 60km-long Kinangop plateau. Only rarely does this place see safari companies and even less individual travellers. But if you're willing to brave the inclement weather, this remote and formidably dense forest is well worth the effort.

The park offers a variety of fauna, flora and scenery which you won't find elsewhere except, perhaps, on Mt Kenya. There are also the dramatic Gura Falls which drop a full 300m, along with alpine moorland, and the chance of seeing a black leopard, elephant, rhino or bongo (spiral-horned antelope).

» Hyrax Hill Prehistoric Site
Just outside Nakuru, this site first went under the archeological microscope in 1937 when Louis Leakey started poking about for signs of ancient life. The digs, which continued right up to the 1980s, indicate three settlements were made here - the earliest possibly 3000 years ago and the most recent about 200 to 300 years ago.

The large collection of items found in the burial pits on and around the hill include a real puzzle - six Indian coins, one of them 500 years old, two of them dating from 1918 and 1919! The site is on the Nairobi road.

» Kakamega Forest Reserve
Kakamega is a superb slab of virgin tropical rainforest in the heart of an intensively cultivated agricultural area of Western Kenya. It's home to a huge variety of birds and animals and is well worth the minimal effort required to get to it.

The forest area of the reserve is where you'll find a number of primate species including the red-tailed monkey, black & white colobus monkey and the blue monkey. The Forest Department maintains a superb rest house here and some excellent guides are available for hire.

» Marsabit National Park & Reserve
Because the area is thickly forested, you won't see much wildlife unless you spend quite some time here - preferably camping at Lake Paradise. This crater lake is aptly named. It's an enchanting place to rough it and few camp sites in Kenya can rival it for scenery and tranquility.

While they might be obscured by the vegetation, this northern park is home to Kenya's larger mammals including lions, leopards, cheetahs, elephants, rhinos, buffaloes, warthogs, zebras, giraffes, hyenas and gazelles. With a quick finger and a lot of patience you might come away with a snap or two.

• Reaching Kenya
Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta International Airport is the hub of East African air transport, and it has connections to many European and US cities. It's from these places that you're mostlikely to get a relatively cheap ticket, but it's worth checking out cheap charter flights to Mombasa from Europe too. Airport departure tax for international flights is 20.00 but is usually included in the cost of your ticket.

You can travel by bus or minibus shuttle between Kenya and Tanzania. The main routes are from Mombasa or Nairobi to Dar es Salaam and from Nairobi to Arusha and Moshi. There's also a once-weekly train connection between Voi in Kenya with Taveta (on the border), from which you can take local transport to Moshi. The ferry service that connected Mombasa with Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam is no longer running.

The main border crossing into Uganda is at Malaba, though Busia is an alternative if you're coming from Kisumu. Nairobi and the Ugandan capital Kampala are connected by road (the train no longer operates). There's a border crossing to Ethiopia frequently used by travellers and overland trucks run to/from Moyale. There's no safe way you can enter or exit Kenya overland from Somalia or Sudan at present.

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