Namesake of a nation: To the indigenous people who lived in central Kenya for thousands of years, Mount Kenya had various names. The Kikuyu, (forming the bulk of Kenya’s modern day population), called it Kirinyaga, which roughly translated means, the ‘white’ or ‘bright’ mountain. The Embu called the mountain Kirenia (the mountain of whiteness), and the Maasai called it both Ol Donyo Eibor (the white mountain) and Ol Donyo Egere (the speckled mountain).

Nairobi National Park is unique. No other city in the world can boast a natural wilderness, teeming with wildlife and home to over 400 species of birds; just ten minutes from the city centre. An oasis of lion-gold plains, acacia-fringed rivers, leopard stalked cliffs, plunging gorges and murky hippo pools, this versatile Park hosts its own wildebeest migration and is the only place on earth where you can find a black rhino grazing against the silhouettes of office blocks and skyscrapers.

An enchanted realm of living coral gardens, sculpted islands, wheeling seabirds and sparklingly clear seas, this world-famous marine Park promises an underwater world of unbelievable colour, discovery and vibrancy. The Park lies in the coral gardens beginning about 1 km south of Wasini Island. This trapezoid section of the Indian Ocean encompasses four small, arid coral islands, each with considerable areas of fringing reefs. Kisite Island features an exposed sand bar and ...

‘Place of Cold’: With its swirling mists and moss-hung cloud forests, Marsabit is aptly named 'Place of Cold'. A remote montane paradise located in the burning wastes of Kenya’s rugged northern region, Marsabit National Park skirts the massive extinct volcano known as Mount Marsabit. Though born of volcanic fire Marsabit is a cool, green, forested realm often swathed in mist. Rising like a mirage above the surrounding burning desert...

Enroute to Mount Elgon lies Kenya’s smallest park, a vibrantly green realm of swamp, bulrushes, sedges and surrounding riverine forest, which was created specifically to protect the habitat of the rare and endangered semi-aquatic Sitatunga antelope. Rarely visited, well-off the tourist track but charmingly rewarding, this compact Park is unique in that it is the only place in Kenya where vehicles are prohibited and the walker reigns supreme. 

A volcanic landscape of tortured basalt cliffs, circling raptors, winding water-gouged gorges, stark rock towers, scrub-clad volcanoes, sultry steaming vents, and belching plumes of geothermal steam, this park is pure theatre, a backdrop to many a Hollywood movie. Cleft deep into the floor of the Rift Valley, the towering cliffs and undulating grasslands of this small park offer the only venue in Kenya where you can walk, or mountain bike, alongside herds of buffalo, zebra, eland, ...

Entitled ‘the greatest bird spectacle on earth’ thanks to the millions of fuchsia-pink flamingo that flock to feed on the teeming algae of its alkaline waters, the pink-frosted shores and sky-mirrored waters of Lake Nakuru yield some of the most evocatively beautiful photo-images in Africa.  Small in size, but high in wildlife, this park makes the ideal day trip, enroute to other destinations and abounds in picturesque lookouts and picnic spots. 

The ‘Jade Sea’: The largest permanent desert lake in the world, Lake Turkana is an isolated alkaline giant covering 6400 sq km. Its mercurial blue-green colour has earned it the title The Jade Sea. On its shores is one of the world’s greatest treasures, 3 million-year-old, Koobi Fora palaeontological site. First discovered by Dr Richard Leakey and his team, Sibiloi, recognized as the ‘Cradle of Mankind’ is likely the site of the biblical Garden of Eden.

The narrowly arching, 80 km long, Chyulus are one of the world's newest mountain ranges, the most recent volcanic peak having been formed only 500 years ago. They offer a fascinating mix of volcanic ash cones and barren lava flows, which combine to create a landscape of almost mythical enchantment. A magical land of black-frozen lava flows studded with blazing red-hot poker trees; of shoals of extinct volcanoes wreathed in dense forests and hung with Spanish moss, ...

Ringed by the chill and misty moorlands of the third highest mountain range in Kenya, this atmospheric park was dubbed ‘Scotland with Lions’ by the early colonialists. As well as lions, the park also offers elephants, lichen-hung forests, spectacular waterfalls and trout-filled streams. A haven for anglers, walkers and lovers of solitude alike, it also plays host to several of Kenya’s most famous lodges and offers matchless vistas of the glittering coronet of Mount Kenya and ...

Once part of the Great Southern Game Reserve, Amboseli is one of Kenya’s earliest game sanctuaries; it is also one of her most popular attracting over 200,000 tourists per year. Towered over by the magnificent bulk of 5,896 m high Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain, Amboseli is comparatively compact and dotted with emerald green swamps in which great herds of elephants can often be seen half-submerged amongst the papyrus grasses. 

High in the mist-wreathed hills of Western Kenya, Mount Elgon is a towering dormant volcano (4,321 m), some 24 million years old. Crowned by a vast crater, etched by glacial tarns, honeycombed by labyrinthine caves, cascaded by streams and cloaked in forest, it straddles the border between Kenya and Uganda. Once the highest mountain in Africa, and held sacred since the dawn of time, enigmatic Elgon is known as the ‘Mountain of Illusion’, while its distant, ...

Ancient home of the hunter gatherers: Between 5-10 thousand years ago, Tsavo was inhabited by the ancestors of today’s remnant groups of hunter-gatherers, primarily the Waliangulu or Sanye people, wanderers of forest and bush, distantly related to the ‘click-speaking’ Khosian of South Africa. The Waliangulu, who were famous for their elephant hunting skills, used massive long bows and arrows that had been dipped in a lethal poison, which could kill an elephant in a few hours.

Kenya’s largest National Park supports all the members of the ‘Big Five’ as well as the country’s largest elephant population. Mzima Springs is home to abundant Nile crocodile and hippo and a popular drinking spot for elephant, zebra and gazelle whilst blue and vervet monkey cavort in the surrounding acacia trees. Other mammals include buffalo, hartebeest, lesser kudu, eland, waterbuck, Grant’s gazelle, impala and giraffe. 

A remote and rugged wilderness: Few places offer a more genuine wilderness ambience than the remote and rugged Meru and Kora National Parks. Little visited, utterly unspoilt and easily the most geographically diverse parks in Kenya, they are the favourites of safari professionals and wildlife experts alike. Brilliantly painted on a magnificent scale, these sister Parks feature luxuriant jungle, coursing rivers, verdant swamp, khaki grasslands, gaunt termite cathedrals ...

The mightiest of the Rift Valley volcanoes, Longonot’s knife-edged rim towers some 2, 776 m above the floor of the Rift, and broods over the alternately storm lashed and pellucid waters of Lake Naivasha. The mountain gets its name from the Maasai term ‘Olonong’ot’, which means ‘mountain of many spurs’ and refers to it’s deeply scored and striated flanks, which are pock-marked with dormant steam vents and topped by a vast circular crater. 

Last retreat of the roan antelope: Ruma National Park lies in Western Kenya, close to the shores of Lake Victoria. An island of wilderness in a sea of intense cultivation and Kenya’s last remaining sanctuary for the endangered roan antelope, the Park promises undiscovered wildlife treasures and undisturbed peace. It is a mosaic of landscapes, ranging from riverine woodland and rolling savannah to magnificent escarpments & towering cliffs ...

Kingdom of the crocodile: The wild and wind-lashed shores of Lake Turkana lie in the far north of Kenya, and in their shifting blue-green waters lie a series of live volcanic islands, home to the world’s largest concentration of Nile crocodiles. Lake Turkana’s estimated 12,000 crocodiles have not changed in 130 million years. Despite their monstrous size and formidable appearance they are generally inoffensive creatures living in perfect harmony with their environment ...

A rugged, hump-backed outcrop of ancient rock jutting high above the Athi Plains and hazily visible from Nairobi, Ol Donyo Sabuk is a densely forested mountain known to the local Kikuyu as 'The Mountain of the Buffalo'. Just one track leads to its summit, which offers magnificent 360-degree panoramas over the Athi River, the pineapple fields of Thika and the snow-capped peaks of both Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya. 

A unique complex of marine and tidal habitats, the Malindi and Watamu marine parks cover an area 30 km long and 5 km wide, and stretch from just south of Malindi town southwards to beyond the entrance to Mida Creek. Africa’s first marine park and one of the world’s last great natural marine reserves, Malindi Marine and its sister waterworld, Watamu Marine offer protection to one of the world’s most famous coral reefs.