I recently returned from a family trip to Kenya, mostly focused on Safari, which is so famous, though we visited the coast and spent some time in Nairobi.    

It was a “fully supervised” family trip, where everything was organized for us from arrival at Nairobi airport to departure, which I think is typical of how Safari tours are done. Our local operator was Mufasa. This low-stress way to travel does not allow for much exploration of real Kenya, as you’re taken through places that are specially designed for foreign visitors.  

After reading about and watching various travel experiences in Kenya, I noticed they tend to focus on wonderful safari experiences and beautiful animal pictures. Indeed, I have never seen so many animals in such proximity; yet, I think they omit many other details that I wish I had known while planning my trip.

In the rest of this article, I will provide an unsorted list of my tips, thoughts, and reflections from the trip.

• As a US Citizen you need an Electronic Visa to travel, make sure you apply for one.
• No vaccinations were required on entry, though the US CDC  has some recommendations.
• Rumors are Drones are not allowed to be brought into Kenya, but they did not check.
• Kenyans speak surprisingly good English, which is one of the official languages, even though they talk to each other in Swahili.
• Security is heightened – access to the Hotel and many commercial buildings are gated, and bags are screened upon entry.
• Going through Nairobi on my morning run, I would not see any European-looking faces for hours, yet I would surprise no one and I felt rather safe, though our hotel was in the “good” neighborhood, I can’t say if all of Nairobi is equally safe.
•  As you go by car peddlers are trying to sell you something at many stoplights.
• Traffic can be a problem at times and standing in this traffic is particularly nasty as there are many old cars on the roads with smelly exhausts.
•  Nairobi has a pretty large slum – Kibera Slum, which we drove through. You can arrange a trip to explore it on foot but it requires a bit of advance notice.
•  Kenya is close to the equator, so you may expect it to be hot, yet because Nairobi and many parks are at high plateau it is not as hot as you would expect, and even can get chilly in the night.
• There is Nairobi National Park right by the city, which allows us to see some animals. We did not go but if you’re just in Nairobi for business for a short time – it might be worth visiting.
• Amboseli and Masai Mara are a short flight away and while it is not usually done this way I think you could do a day trip there and be able to see a lot of animals in just a few hours. 
• Giraffe Center is one of the famous attractions in Nairobi, felt like an overpromoted tourist trap to me – it is basically a Zoo where you can feed Giraffes…  quite crowded. Yes perhaps you can get some good Instagram pictures but it did not feel authentic for me.
•  Some people praise Kenyan food as something outstanding. Might be, that we were unlucky but I would not rank it above average in most places, and consistency is poor – the same dish in the same place can be very different from one day to another. The only place that I would rank good was the Italian restaurant we went to in Nairobi, which was owned by an Italian couple.
•  Service is peculiar – in most, if not all places we’ve been they do not seem to assign waiters to tables, instead you are quite likely 3 different people to come and ask for your order. Might be they are trying to be helpful and welcoming this way.
•  Wait times can be long,  the food can be brought up in random order at different times for different people… well basically do not expect a lot if you want to be positively surprised. 😊
•  We stayed on Chale Island on the Kenyan coast which was a cool experience – it is a proper island accessible by boat during high tide but you can walk to the mainland during low tide. Low tide also exposes a lot of interesting creatures on the shallows to explore.
• Two types of monkeys live on the island – Baboons and Colobus which are quite fun to watch
•  You could take a local village tour organized by a hotel, we instead paid a local to take us to the village. It was great we could see some real village life, not the “performance” that we saw while visiting Masai village later on.
•  Bring candy, local kids of all ages love it, “do not take candy from strangers” is not something practiced in Kenya.
• Diving was well organized and efficient, and equipment quality was good. Lots of bleached corals, and not as much marine life as in other places we dove, we saw octopus and a fair amount of Moray eels.  
• We did not spend a lot of time snorkeling but it looked fun – saw some marine life you do not usually see snorkeling.
• Local flights look disorganized, but except for some minor delays, we did not have any problems with them.
• Flights to Parks are especially interesting – there are no airports out there, just airstrips which may be as simple as unpaved runways and nothing else.  Single-engine Cessna Caravan planes let you sit very close to pilots and watch how they operate the planes.
•  Planes operate somewhat similar to a bus – there might be multiple stops before your final destination, depending on where people need to go. Yet landing, picking dropping off/picking up passengers, and taking off again takes about 10 minutes, so it does not add as much time as you fear.
•  The airstrips are located inside national parks, so you are likely to start seeing animals even before you land.
•  You can also access Amboseli and Masai Mara parks driving from Nairobi, which allows you to see some distinct scenery. We thought there would be enough time in the car during Safari “Game Drives”.
• For some reason, the paved road ends at the park gate. Inside the part even main roads are unpaved.
• This means going through the park is slow and bumpy and might be tiring. It also means you may not cover all areas in the park.
• We had 2 full days of Safari in Amboseli and Masai Mara, each, in both places we got 80% of the value from the first day, though the second day allowed for some unique sights too.
• Morning is the best time to see animals, in particular predators.
• Most animals are not afraid of cars… surprisingly so. We were meters away from Lion and Cheetah and they would ignore that.
•  On the flip side – you can’t get out of the car In the park, except a couple of dedicated spots, which made it a rather tiring experience for me.
• This means most opportunities for pictures are animals alone, It is unlikely you would be able to get a picture of all your family with an Elephant in the background during those game drives
• Bring a proper camera with Zoom lenses. We got the best pictures from full-frame sensor SLR with 500mm zoom lenses. When there was enough light, point in shoot point and shoot camera with 1200m zoom also worked well. Phones got some use too for shots and videos when images were close. The tripod was not needed as you do not get out of the car to place it.
• There is very little light pollution, so if you’re lucky with a clear sky, you can see and take great pictures of the Milky Way even with your phone.
• Parks are unfenced and animals can come and go as they like, so you can see a fair amount of animals outside of the park too, possibly even from your “camp”.
•  Both camps we stayed at had electricity, and hot water, but did not have AC. It was not very hot, but we were told it could get much hotter.
• One camp had accommodation in cottages, another one in large tents made from canvas over a large metallic frame.
• One of the camps required us to have an escort every time we moved about by the camp (i.e. going to a restaurant or reception) another one required it only if you go outside the camp or during the night time. This all means there is not a lot of opportunity to just go for a nice long walk while you’re on Safari…
• Both camps had swimming pools but no fitness.
• Safari Accommodation, and Park Access fees are surprisingly expensive. I plan to rant about it in detail in a separate article.
• The accommodation we had was some 30 min from the park gate in both cases. There is accommodation in the park but it was fully booked  – even with those expensive prices, good accommodation might be hard to come by during peak season, so book early.
• We liked Amboseli more than Masai Mara, It is a smaller part and has a higher density of wildlife, you can see something every five minutes. Lots of Elephants.
•  In Masai Mara, we saw huge herds of Wildebeests, and crocodiles, and had better sights of lions and cheetahs so It was worth a visit too.
• Masai Mara village is very touristic, though it Is also real – locals really live in this village, in such conditions, and do not just show up there to entertain tourists for the day.   
•  In Masai Mara Village you are offered some local craft at outrageous prices…  The starting price easily can be 10x as much as at the market by the park gate.
• We made a day trip to Naivasha Lake. I would rather allocate to spend more time here – unlike Safari you can go for a walk, and semi-wild animals in the part are used to people walking and allowed to get really close to them. You can also do horseback riding through the park which looks fun.
•  Sheldrick Elephant Refuge is fun to visit – you can see how baby Orphan Elephants and Rhinos are fed, and interact with them. It is really popular though so you need to book it in advance and do expect crowds.
• Another Attraction is Coffee Farm visit – worth doing if you have not been to one or if you like coffee.

Overall this was a fantastic trip which left us all with great families. Hopefully, this little brain dump of mine will help you to plan yours.

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