Things to Do in Kenya

Known For : Mara River Game Drives Balloon Safari

The Mara is where most Kenya trips begin. Game drives here reliably turn up lion, elephant, buffalo and cheetah on open grassland where they are easy to spot. The wildebeest herds are in the Mara roughly July to October, when the river crossings happen, and spend the rest of the year in Tanzania's Serengeti. It is 270 km from Nairobi, five to six hours by road or 45 minutes by air from Wilson Airport. Packages average around Rs 2,32,000 per person.

Best Time: June to October

16 Masai Mara Attractions

Balloons lift off from the Mara floor just before sunrise and drift low over the plains for about an hour, which is the one time of day when the herds are moving rather than resting. Landings are followed by breakfast set up in the bush. Flights are weather dependent and sell out months ahead between July and October, so fix the date when you book your camp.

The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust raises orphaned elephant calves at a nursery on the edge of Nairobi National Park and opens to the public for one hour late each morning, when keepers bring the youngest out to feed and roll in the mud. It is about 25 minutes from central Nairobi and pairs naturally with the Giraffe Centre in the same half day. Book the slot in advance.

The Giraffe Centre in Lang'ata, about 20 km from the city centre, was set up to protect the Rothschild's giraffe and has a raised wooden platform that brings you level with their heads, so you can hand them pellets. A short forest boardwalk runs behind it. Allow an hour, and go on a weekday morning if you want it quiet. It is not the same place as Giraffe Manor, the hotel next door.

Diani is a long unbroken stretch of white sand south of Mombasa, with a reef close enough offshore that the water inside stays flat and shallow at low tide. It is roughly an hour from Mombasa by road including the Likoni ferry, or a short flight to Ukunda airstrip from Nairobi. Colobus monkeys cross the road on rope bridges. January to March is hot and clear, and May is the wettest month.

Best Time: December - March, June - September

Known For : Gorges Valley

Hell's Gate is one of the few Kenyan parks you can enter on foot or by bicycle, which is the whole reason to come. Bikes are hired at the gate and the flat track runs past red cliffs and grazing zebra, giraffe and warthog to the Ol Njorowa gorge, where a guide walks you through the narrow section. It sits beside Lake Naivasha, two hours from Nairobi, and works as a half day.

Best Time: June - September

1 Hells Gate Attractions

Lamu has no cars, so boats do the work, and hiring a dhow with its crew for a half day is the normal way to see the archipelago. Trips run out to the mangrove channels, to Manda Toto for snorkelling and to Shela for the beach, with fish grilled on board. Lamu Old Town is a UNESCO site of coral stone houses and carved doors. Fly to Manda from Nairobi or Mombasa.

Best Time: July - September, January - February

An hour on the water at Naivasha gets you close to hippo pods and to the fish eagles that boatmen call down for a strike. The lake is fresh rather than alkaline, so the birdlife differs from the soda lakes further north: pelicans, herons and kingfishers along the papyrus edge. Naivasha is about 90 km from Nairobi, an easy weekend or a stop on the way to the Mara.

Best Time: July - October

Watamu's marine park protects a coral garden inside a sheltered lagoon, so snorkelling is easy even if you have never done it, and boats run out from the beach in about ten minutes. Turtles are common and a local trust runs a rehabilitation centre in the village. Watamu is around 105 km north of Mombasa. Visibility is best from October to March, when the water is calm.

Known For : Lake Ellis

Mount Kenya is the second highest mountain in Africa, and trekkers head for Point Lenana at 4,985 m rather than the true summit, Batian at 5,199 m, which is a technical rock climb. The Sirimon, Naro Moru and Chogoria routes take four to five days through bamboo forest and giant lobelia moorland. The mountain sits 150 km north of Nairobi. January to February and August to September are driest.

Best Time: June - September

1 Mount Kenya Attractions

Nairobi National Park begins about 7 km from the city centre, which makes it the only national park sitting on the edge of a capital. Rhino, lion, giraffe and buffalo range across the plains with office towers on the skyline behind them. A drive takes two to three hours, so it fits before an evening flight. There are no elephants inside the fence.

Ol Pejeta in Laikipia holds the largest black rhino population in East Africa and the last two northern white rhinos, Najin and Fatu, both female and under armed guard. Rangers take small groups out to track rhino on foot, which is slower and far more involving than watching from a vehicle. There is a chimpanzee sanctuary on the same land. It is about four hours north of Nairobi, near Nanyuki.

Best Time: June - October

Crescent Island is a private sanctuary on Lake Naivasha with no big predators, so a ranger walks you among zebra, giraffe, waterbuck and impala on foot instead of driving past them. The loop takes about an hour and a half and you reach it by boat from the lakeshore. Pair it with a hippo cruise for a full morning. Early light is best for photographs.

Lake Bogoria is now the dependable place to see lesser flamingos in Kenya. Numbers at Lake Nakuru fell after 2013, when rising water diluted the lake and much of the flock moved north to Bogoria, where hot springs and geysers steam along the shore. Bogoria is about four hours from Nairobi. Nakuru still holds rhino and is worth the stop, but do not count on the pink line.

Best Time: July - October

Boats leave Shimoni for the Kisite-Mpunguti marine park, where the reef sits in clear open water and bottlenose and humpback dolphins are seen on most trips. The day usually ends with a Swahili seafood lunch on Wasini Island. Shimoni is about two hours south of Mombasa, past Diani, and the sea is calmest from October to March. Set aside a full day.

Best Time: January - March, July - October

Fort Jesus was built by the Portuguese in the 1590s to hold the harbour, changed hands nine times over the next two centuries and is now a UNESCO site with a museum of what was dug out of it. Walk on into Old Town afterwards for carved doors, Swahili balconies and the spice market. The two together make a morning, and the fort is coolest early.

Karen Blixen farmed coffee on this land until 1931 and wrote Out of Africa about it. The house is kept as she left it, with her furniture and the Ngong Hills filling the view from the lawn, and a guide walks you through in about 40 minutes. It sits in the Karen suburb, close to the Giraffe Centre and Kitengela Glass, so the three make one afternoon.

Samburu is dry country north of Mount Kenya with animals you will not see in the Mara: Grevy's zebra, reticulated giraffe, gerenuk and Beisa oryx. Camel treks led by Samburu herders move at walking pace along the Ewaso Ng'iro river between camps, which is a slower and more involving day than sitting in a vehicle. It is about six hours from Nairobi, or a short flight, and driest from June to October.

Best Time: June - October

Karura is a large gazetted forest inside Nairobi with marked trails, a waterfall, old caves and a bamboo grove, and you can walk, run or hire a bicycle at the gate. It is fenced, patrolled and busy at weekends, which makes it the easiest green half day in the city. There is a cafe by the river. Mornings are cool and the paths dry quickly after rain.

Best Time: June - September

The Tana at Sagana is where Kenyan rafting happens, on a stretch that mixes easy water with a few grade four rapids depending on flow. Trips run half or full day and the same operators offer bungee, kayaking and a zip line. Sagana is about two hours north of Nairobi on the Nyeri road, so it works as a day trip or a stop on the way to Mount Kenya.

Known For : Malindi Marine National Park Watamu Beach

The Malindi and Watamu coast is Kenya's big game fishing base, with the shelf dropping away close to shore. Sailfish and marlin run from November to March, and boats also work for tuna, wahoo and dorado. Charters go out for a half or full day, and tag and release is standard practice on most of them. Malindi is about 120 km north of Mombasa.

Best Time: January - March, July - October

2 Malindi Attractions

The Nairobi National Museum is the best single stop for context before you head out of the city. The hominid fossil hall holds finds from the Lake Turkana digs, and there are galleries on Kenya's peoples, birds and contemporary art. The snake park and botanic gardens share the site. Allow two hours, and it is central enough to walk to.

The old Naivasha road climbs out of Nairobi and then drops, and about 50 km out a line of viewpoints opens where the escarpment falls away to the valley floor, with Mount Longonot and Mount Suswa standing in it. Stalls at the layby sell sheepskins and carvings. It adds ten minutes to a drive you are already making, and the light is clearest in the morning.

Best Time: June - October; January - February

Most camps near the Mara can arrange a visit to a neighbouring Maasai manyatta. It is a paid, arranged visit rather than a chance encounter: you are shown a homestead, the livestock enclosure and how the houses are built, there is usually dancing, and beadwork is sold at the end. Ask your camp which community the money goes to, and pick one where the village runs the visit itself.

Bomas of Kenya in Lang'ata is a state run cultural centre laid out as a set of homesteads from different Kenyan communities, with a daily afternoon programme of dance and music in a large auditorium. The performers are salaried, which makes it a straightforward alternative if a village visit sits uneasily with you. Allow two to three hours.

Diani is Kenya's kitesurfing centre, with schools along the beach running courses from complete beginner upwards. Two wind seasons work: the kaskazi from December to March, which is steadier and warmer, and the kusi from June to September, which blows harder. The reef flattens the water inside the lagoon, so it is a forgiving place to learn. Lessons are usually booked in blocks of several days.

Kenya is one of the world's largest tea exporters, and two places let you see how it works. Limuru is 40 minutes from Nairobi, where a farm visit fills a half day of walking the rows, watching the leaf processed and eating lunch on the lawn. Kericho, five hours west near the Mau forest, is the real heartland, with estates running to the horizon. Both sit high, so carry a jacket.

The Railway Museum keeps rolling stock from the line built between Mombasa and Lake Victoria in the 1890s, including the carriage in which a British superintendent was killed by a man eating lion at Kima in 1900. Most of it stands in the open beside the station and you can climb into the cabs. It is small, an hour is enough, and it is close to the city centre.

Kitengela Glass is a working hot glass studio out on the plains past Ongata Rongai, about an hour from central Nairobi, where recycled bottles are blown into glassware in front of you. The site is half the appeal: mosaic buildings, a rope bridge across a gorge and a cafe. Short hands on workshops can be booked. Call ahead, as blowing does not run every day.

The Maasai Market is a roving open air craft market that sets up in a different part of Nairobi on each day of the week, so ask your hotel where it is before you go. Beadwork, kikoys, soapstone and carvings are all sold by bargaining, and starting near half the asking price is normal. Kazuri Beads in Karen is the fixed price alternative if you would rather not haggle.

Nyama choma, goat or beef grilled over charcoal and eaten with ugali and kachumbari, is the standard Kenyan meal out, and it is better in a busy roadside place than in a hotel. On the coast the food changes: Swahili biryani, coconut fish curry, viazi karai and mahamri. Nairobi also has strong Indian food, a legacy of the railway. Vegetarians do better on the coast than upcountry.