Almost every trip starts in Nairobi, and it is worth two nights rather than a layover: a national park inside the city boundary, the Nairobi National Museum, and a restaurant scene that has long outgrown the guidebooks. From there the country splits three ways. The Rift Valley run is the easiest, through Naivasha and Nakuru and their soda lakes, with the Maasai Mara at the end of it past Narok. The coast is the other half of the trip and a different country in temperament: Mombasa and Fort Jesus, the reef beaches at Diani, and Lamu, where the lanes are too narrow for cars and the donkeys still work. The third option is the highlands, with Nanyuki under Mount Kenya and the Laikipia conservancies beyond it. January, February and July through September are the dry months that make the game viewing and the driving both work.
1 Kenya city guide
Fun fact
Nairobi National Park was gazetted in 1946 as Kenya’s first national park, and its 117 square kilometres still sit inside the capital’s boundary.
Stereotypes, sorted out
The realityThe parks are why most people come, and they are a fraction of the country. Kenya holds eight UNESCO World Heritage sites and five of them are cultural: a Swahili trading town at Lamu, a Portuguese fort in Mombasa, the sacred Mijikenda kaya forests, a drystone settlement above Lake Victoria at Thimlich Ohinga, and the medieval town of Gedi that the forest took back. The Maasai Mara is not on the list at all. A trip built only on game drives skips the half of Kenya that people live in.
The realityBetween roughly July and October more than a million wildebeest move north out of the Serengeti into the Mara, with zebra and gazelle behind them. Nobody controls the timing, because it follows rain, and the herds spread across the plains rather than queueing at one bank. Crossings happen when they happen, sometimes twice in a morning and sometimes not for days. Book the season, plan several drives, and treat a crossing as a bonus rather than an itinerary line.
The realityNairobi sits close to 1,800 metres and gets cold enough at night in July that fleeces sell on the street. The coast is humid and tropical, the north is desert, and the moorlands on Mount Kenya freeze. Altitude decides what you pack, not latitude, which is why a country on the equator can want a jumper and a swimsuit in the same week.
The realityKenya runs on mobile money. M-Pesa arrived in 2007 and is now how a matatu fare, a market stall and a plumber all get paid, and cards cover the hotels and the malls. Visitors mostly manage on a card and an ATM. The shilling is the currency that matters inland, while US dollars are quoted for park fees and safari camps rather than for lunch.
The realityEnglish and Swahili are both official, and English will carry you through a hotel, an airport and a park gate. Swahili is what the country talks in, it works from the Kenyan coast into eastern Congo, and Nairobi runs Sheng over the top of it. A dozen words changes how a conversation opens, and jambo is the least of them: try asante for thanks and pole for sorry.
Cultural notes that actually help
- Greet before you ask. A jambo or a habari, and a pause for the answer, comes before the question. Opening with the request reads as rudeness rather than efficiency.
- Seniority is addressed rather than ignored. Mzee for an older man and mama for an older woman are respectful, not familiar, and a two-handed handshake goes with them.
- Ask before photographing anyone, and expect the answer to sometimes carry a fee. Maasai and Samburu communities are photographed constantly, and a portrait is a transaction rather than a candid.
- Do not photograph government buildings, police, airports or a presidential motorcade. This is enforced, and it is not an argument you will win.
- Keep the left hand out of a handshake and out of shared food. It matters more on the coast than in Nairobi, and it costs nothing to remember.
- The coast dresses more modestly than the capital. Shoulders and knees covered away from the beach in Mombasa, Malindi and Lamu, and swimwear stays on the sand.
- Pole pole means slowly, and it is a worldview as much as a phrase. A meeting time is a rough intention, and visible impatience about it gets you nothing.
Famous Kenyan faces
Wangari Maathai
Eliud Kipchoge
Lupita Nyong’o
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
Jomo Kenyatta
Faith Kipyegon
Richard Leakey
David Rudisha
Kipchoge Keino
Catherine Ndereba
Paul Tergat
Vivian Cheruiyot
Binyavanga Wainaina
Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor
Grace Ogot
Meja Mwangi
Wanuri Kahiu
Edi Gathegi
Judy Kibinge
Ayub Ogada
Sauti Sol
Eric Wainaina
Nyashinski
Louise Leakey
Thomas Odhiambo
Dedan Kimathi
Tom Mboya
Mekatilili wa Menza
Must-try Kenyan food
Ugali
Maize flour and water, stirred stiff. The plate everything else is eaten with, and eaten by hand.
Sukuma wiki
Collard greens with onion and tomato. The name means push the week, which tells you what it costs.
Githeri
Maize and beans stewed together, the school-lunch dish that grew up into a restaurant one.
Mukimo
Potato mashed through peas, maize and greens. Central highlands cooking, served under a stew.
Chapati
The Kenyan version is rolled with oil into layers and cooked on a dry pan. Sunday food.
Nyama choma
Goat or beef roasted over coals and cut at the table. Kenya’s default celebration, and a whole category of restaurant.
Mutura
Grilled sausage of minced meat, offal and blood, sold by the piece off a roadside brazier after dark.
Kachumbari
Raw tomato, red onion, chilli and coriander. The acid that makes a plate of roast meat work.
Pilau
Rice cooked through spiced stock with meat, coast style. Cardamom, cumin and cinnamon do the work.
Biryani
The other Swahili rice dish, layered rather than cooked together, and richer than pilau.
Samaki wa kupaka
Whole fish grilled, then finished in a coconut and tamarind sauce. Mombasa and Lamu at their best.
Wali wa nazi
Rice cooked in coconut milk, and the base under most coastal plates.
Viazi karai
Potato in turmeric batter, deep fried, eaten out of a paper cone with tamarind chutney.
Mahindi choma
Maize roasted on a brazier, then rubbed with chilli, salt and lime. The commonest snack in the country.
Smokie pasua
A split sausage stuffed with kachumbari, invented at a street cart and now sold on every corner.
Bhajia
Sliced potato in spiced gram-flour batter, a Kenyan Indian staple served with chilli sauce.
Samosa
Beef or lentil, folded and fried. Sold at every kiosk, and better than that sounds.
Mandazi
Lightly sweet fried dough, often with cardamom or coconut. Breakfast, with tea.
Mahamri
The coastal mandazi, made with coconut milk and yeast, eaten with a bean stew.
Kaimati
Small fried dough balls in sugar syrup, from the Swahili and Omani side of the kitchen.
Chai ya maziwa
Tea boiled with milk and sugar rather than brewed, which is how it is drunk everywhere.
Kenyan coffee
Grown in the highlands, mostly exported, and finally taken seriously at home in Nairobi’s roasteries.
Dawa
Vodka, honey and lime over crushed ice, stirred with a wooden stick. The name means medicine.
Mursik
Fermented milk cured in a soot-lined gourd, Kalenjin, and the drink handed to runners coming home with medals.
