Best National Parks & Reserves of Kenya

Lake Nakuru is included on many standard safari itineraries through Kenya: a couple of upmarket lodges lie within the park, as does a lovely leafy campsite. It is unusually accessible to budget travellers: there’s plenty of cheap accommodation in nearby Nakuru town, from where the park can be explored by taxi. The flamingo flocks have been erratic over the past decade (in some years absent altogether) and larger numbers are often amassed at nearby Lake Bogoria. Good numbers of flamingo are currently present at Nakuru, but do seek up-to-date advice before you go.

Mount Kenya

Rooms With a View
The setting is a swampy pool encircled by lush gallery forest and capped by the ragged glacial peaks of Africa’s second-highest mountain. Syke’s and Colobus monkeys cavort through the trees accompanied by the manic braying of hornbills, while a bright green Hartlaub’s turaco breaks cover to reveal its lustrous crimson underwings. Every so often, the waterbuck and buffalo that maintain a constant presence in the glade scatter to accommodate an elephant herd as it emerges from a forest path. Darkness descends, invoking a white noise of insect chatter punctuated by the banshee wailing of Tree hyraxes, then comes a passing parade of spotlighted nocturnal creatures — most reliably Giant forest hog, bushpig, genet, White-tailed mongoose, Black rhino and often leopard or lion.

Another night at Mountain Lodge on the forested slopes of Mount Kenya, which — together with the forests in nearby Aberdare NP — is perhaps unique in harbouring a wide range of forest creatures alongside several big game species more widely associated with bush habitats. Also more-or-less unique to this region is the so-called tree hotel, a game-viewing concept (in a nutshell, let the animals come to you) patented in colonial times by Treetops in the Aberdares and perfected today at Mountain Lodge. The lodge is, for several reasons, the most alluring of the trio of tree hotels in the area. It is, ironically, the least publicised and thus the least crowded and institutionalised. And while The Ark (in the Aberdares) might have a slight edge in terms of Big Five sightings, Mountain Lodge is infinitely superior for forest specialists.

Not least, there is the stirring setting below the peaks of Mount Kenya — itself a highly rewarding destination for hikers, offering a comparable challenge and supporting a similar procession of altitude-related vegetation zones (forest, moorland, barren alpine rocks) to Kilimanjaro and the Ruwenzoris.

Tsavo East & West

A Battlefield Reclaimed
July 1988: Tsavo stands at the epicentre of a poaching war that has practically exterminated its 6000 rhinoceros and threatens to take its elephant the same way. Living specimens of the 20,000 elephant that once roamed this vast 22,000km2 reserve are scarce and, when located, stampede terrified into the thicket. Along the roadside, heaps of tuskless carcasses stand as flesh-and-blood cairns marking the site of recent massacres. The vultures aren’t complaining, but few give Tsavo’s elephants much hope of surviving into the 21st century.

Tsavo’s resurrection since those gloomy days (the turning point being the 1989 CITES ivory ban) is little short of miraculous. The elephant population is nudging towards the 10,000 mark and 100 rhinos have been reintroduced — some free ranging, the rest coddled in a large stockade in Tsavo West (entry is permitted in the company of a ranger). Most other key savannah species are present, and while sightings aren’t as fast and furious as in some more popular reserves, the relatively low tourist traffic — and aura of rejuvenating wilderness — compensate.

The two Tsavos — divided by the Nairobi-Mombasa Highway — are markedly different in character. Tsavo West, serviced by several upmarket lodges, is characterised by intimate landscapes of volcanically formed hills descending south to the papyrus-fringed Lake Jipe near Kilimanjaro. Tsavo East, with fewer lodges, is a vast tract of fine red sand and dry acacia scrub harbouring several dry-country species also associated with Samburu. Its compelling wilderness character is alleviated by the lovely, palm-fringed Galana River. Landmarks include the game-rich Aruba Dam and bald Mudanda Rock in Tsavo East, and the Sheteni Lava Flow and unique underwater viewing tank (with hippos occasionally in range) at Mzima Springs in Tsavo West.

Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem (shared with Tanzania)

The World’s Greatest Wildlife Spectacle
It’s the soul-stirring sense of space that, for some, endures in the memory: the oceans of grassland, cropped and yellow in the dry season, tall and green after the rains, alluded to in the Maasai name Serengit (“endless plain”). For most, however, it’s the staggering volume of game, in particular the annual migration of up to two million wildebeest, zebra, gazelle and other grazers. Hyped? Possibly. Over-hyped? Says who, exactly? This vast cross-border ecosystem, centred on Tanzania’s Serengeti NP and Kenya’s abutting Masai Mara Reserve, is Africa’s premier game viewing destination — no ifs or buts about it.

Impressive on every conceivable level, the Serengeti-Mara is surely without equal for predators. Trademark blond-maned lions lounge nonchalantly in the shade, solitary cheetahs pace the open plains, hyaenas lope and sniff around their subterranean dens — even leopard are seen regularly in specific areas. Smaller plains residents include the dainty Bat-eared fox, all three African jackal species and half-a-dozen endemic birds, while punctuating kopjies (granite outcrops) are frequented by the colourful Agama lizard, scurrying Rock hyrax and dainty klipspringer.