Where to go on a first visit

The options can seem overwhelming: with so many parks, reserves and conservancies, where to go on a first visit?

Firstly, we’d strongly recommend including the famous Maasai Mara. At any time of year, the lands around the meandering Mara River host abundant wildlife and whether you’re watching a pride of lions hunting, a herd of elephants grazing in the marsh or hyenas squabbling with vultures over the carcass of a buffalo, you are conscious all the time of being in a realm apart, a human visitor to a landscape owned by the animals. Yes, the publicly accessible Maasai Mara National Reserve gets very busy, especially during holiday periods and when the wildebeest migration is on. There’s a new hard surfaced road from Nairobi which makes access easy for weekenders too. However, the former Maasai grazing lands around the reserve have mostly been converted to very successful wildlife conservancies, managed by the local community in association with small, high quality safari camp owners, and these Maasai Mara Conservancies are well worth considering if you want to avoid the crowds.

The other region we very often recommend as a contrast with the Mara is Laikipia, the upland former ranches and hills northwest of Mount Kenya. Laikipia now largely consists of a patchwork of highly successful wildlife conservancies, providing extensive sanctuary to rhinos, wild dogs, leopards and most of the other megafauna of the East African plains and bush.

If you want to include some beach time, Kenya's Indian Ocean coast, fringed by coral reefs, is the real deal – with the bonus of rewarding historical discoveries to be made in the old cities of Mombasa and Lamu, and the ruins of Gedi, near Watamu.

Local flight transfers

The workhorse of Kenya’s local aviation is the Cessna Caravan. It’s a turboprop plane, typically seating 9-12 passengers, plus the pilot and co-pilot. If you’re not used to flying in unpressurised light aircraft the experience can either be exhilarating or a little unexpected at first. Be prepared for the plane to be gently buffeted by wind and thermals and to drop into bush airstrips more than once in the course of your journey. Our scheduled airline partners strive to be reliable, but the final route and timings of any particular service are usually only settled the day before, when camps are notified of arrival and departure times.

Kenyan food and drink

Most Kenyans breakfast on the national staples of sweet, milky tea and white bread and margarine, with ugali (a stiff, polenta-like corn mash) usually eaten as the main meal of the day, with a little sauce or relish and green-leaf vegetables to liven it up. Traditionally, celebratory meals invariably focus around the consumption of huge quantities of meat. Roast meat (nyama choma with ugali is the closest to a true national dish, but only the Swahili coast has a proper cuisine, based around the spices and ingredients of the Indian Ocean, Middle East and India.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, most of the dishes you’ll be served in hotels and luxury safari camps will be quite familiar. Soups, bread rolls, tasty salads and fruit bowls (often grown in an organic kitchen garden at the camp itself), roast and stewed beef, pork, lamb and chicken, familiar vegetables, occasional fish and standards of the British-European dessert list like lemon meringue pie and profiteroles are all frequently on the menu. Many camps and lodges will have a curry night or a Swahili night (with aromatic dishes from the Indian Ocean coast) and most run menu rotations of at least five days to avoid presenting the same meals more than once.

Local lager-style beer and familiar soft drinks are available everywhere, as is imported wine, often South African.

Kenya’s History

Kenya is a cradle of human history, with some of the earliest fossil evidence of human ancestors found here. Exhibits in Nairobi’s National Museum and various archaeological sites across the country offer a glimpse into these ancient times. From as early as 9000 BC, hunter-gatherers used stone tools in Kenya, later merging with migrants from what is now Ethiopia who brought advanced material culture like obsidian tools and refined pottery.

The arrival of Bantu-speaking peoples around 1 AD from the western forests marked a significant cultural infusion. These groups, including the ancestors of today’s Kikuyu, Kamba, and Mijikenda, introduced iron-working, crucial for their advancement. By 1000 AD, most of Kenya’s communities were part of an iron-age economy, enriching local cultures through intermarriage and trade.

Islam and the cultures of the Indian Ocean reached the Kenyan coast via Arab traders, influencing the Bantu-speaking communities and giving rise to the Swahili civilization. Later, the introduction of American crops like corn and cassava by Portuguese traders further transformed Kenyan agriculture.

The 19th century saw the rise of the Maasai and Samburu, pastoralists from the Nile region. However, the end of the century brought European colonialists who disrupted local societies. Kenya's struggle against British colonial rule peaked with the brutal suppression of the Mau Mau uprising in the 1950s.

Kenya gained independence in 1963, leading to a period marked by government corruption, a robust free-market economy, and complex tribal politics. Despite these challenges, the nation has maintained a degree of democracy and freedom of the press since the 1990s. Today, conservation and wildlife management are pivotal, shaped by strict no-hunting laws established in 1978 and liberal land ownership policies. Balancing economic interests with the needs of millions living in poverty remains a significant challenge for Kenya in the 21st century.