The best safaris in Kenya
The best safaris in Kenya : Kenya provides a wide variety of breath taking safaris to experience its various wildlife and landscapes. Maasai Mara National Reserve, Amboseli National Park, Tsavo National Park, Samburu National Reserve, and Lake Nakuru National Park are a few of the top safari locations. Each offers distinctive opportunities and experiences to observe the “Big Five” (lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard, and rhinoceros) and other amazing species.
Maasai Mara National Reserve
The Maasai Mara national reserve, which is 1510 square kilometres in size and borders Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park to the south, is situated in the southwest of Kenya. It is a large, picturesque expanse of the gently sloping African savannah plains. Maasai Mara is a top Kenya safari destination in all of East Africa and is known for its outstanding natural diversity of wildlife. It is such a special place for wildlife conservation and offers people many reasons to visit this incredible animal paradise. In addition to the big five mammals—elephants, buffaloes, leopards, and lions—the reserve is home to a wide variety of other animal species, including cheetahs, wildebeest, giraffes, zebras, and many others.
The other attraction of Maasai Mara National Reserve is the Maasai culture which is one of the best kept cultures that one can experience in Africa during a safari. They are pastoralists who used to hunt animals on foot and have a distinctive culture that is unmatched anywhere else in the world. Even though visitors from all over the modern world frequently move with them, these people have lived close to and around the reserve for many years without changing their traditions, conventions, and practises. One of the most fascinating cultural groups in Africa is the Maasai tribe, who are distinguished by their colourful clothing and height. The Maasai hold the belief that all livestock formerly belonged to their forefathers, and that any that are not with them today were stolen.
Maasai Mara National Reserve is known for its amazing and most successful Hot air balloon safaris which in most cases, guests are advised to sit down and cover their eyes as the balloon starts lifting the basket on air slowly with high heart beats because you internally feel the motions when it leaves the grounds because your body feels irrational but you have no control over it. Balloon safaris are the kind of once-in-a-lifetime experience that no one can ever forget. The activity begins in the morning and lasts for one to two hours, depending on the weather of the day, as the tourists take in the aerial views of the birds and the undulating landscape of the great rift valley, forests, and closely observing cats, especially if they are on a hunt. If necessary, you can follow the cats as they hunt.
The Maasai Mara Wildebeest Migration is the main attractions and the most sought after animal behaviour in the world, making the reserve the most fascinating spot for a wildlife safari in Kenya. The wildebeest migration from Serengeti National Park to Maasai Mara National Reserve during the months of July to October is best viewed from Maasai Mara National Reserve especially when crossing the crocodiles infested Mara River is breath taking.
The Great Migration, an annual migration of approximately 1.5 million wildebeest, 400,000 zebras, thousands of Thomson’s gazelles, and elands from Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park across the Mara River to Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve, is known as one of the world’s most famous natural phenomena. In there quest for fresh pastures, the wildebeest do migrate passing through some of the dangerous routes with plenty of predators to Maasai Mara national reserve. The unlucky are consumed as prey by the crocodiles in the Mara River, while the successful may be waited for by large cats like lions as they select the weak one is the targeted meal, but the persistent ones can still stand and endure.
Tsavo National Park
Both Tsavo East and West National Parks forms the largest conservation in Kenya. One of Kenya’s largest and oldest national parks, Tsavo is renowned for the variety of animals it supports as well as its breath taking scenery. Visitors can witness a variety of animals there, including as elephants, lions, rhinos, and more, because it is split into Tsavo East and Tsavo West. The park offers a fantastic opportunity to explore Africa’s natural beauty and animals, making it a favourite destination for safaris and nature lovers.
The greater Tsavo conservation area is made up of the park and surrounding private and community conservancies. This park is popular for its size and the abundance of elephant herds that can be seen there. Given its size, the park is home to a variety of wildlife, including mammals, reptiles, and predators. The park is becoming the best and everyone’s ideal safari location in Kenya as a result. Along with the Maasai Mara National Reserve, Amboseli National Park, Nairobi National Park, and Lake Nakuru National Park, it is one of Kenya’s most well-known tourist safari tour parks.
One of the areas in Kenya with the greatest concentration of lions is Tsavo East National Park and the broader Tsavo Conservation Area. The park is renowned for its diverse wildlife, vast elephant herds, and the Tsavo Man-Eaters Lions, which claimed the lives of numerous individuals during the pre-colonial Kenya-Uganda Railway building. The largest animals, including the well-known Big Five, including elephants, rhinos, lions, leopards, and buffaloes, call it home. Lesser kudus, impalas, gazelles, warthogs, waterbuck, hippopotamuses, giraffes, hyenas, topis, dik-diks, elands, and wildebeest are some of the other animals. In addition to lions and leopards, the park is also home to other big cats, including cheetahs, hyenas, jackals, genet cats, wild dogs, and other animals.
Amboseli National Park
The Amboseli National Park is situated in southern Kenya, close to the Tanzanian border. It is renowned for its diverse animals and breath taking vistas. The mountain, which is actually in Tanzania across the border, provides a striking background for the park’s plains, wetlands, and wildlife.
Although Mount Kilimanjaro can be seen in breath taking detail from Kenya’s Amboseli National Park, it is not actually inside the park’s boundaries. Amboseli National Park lies in southern Kenya, whereas Mount Kilimanjaro is in north-eastern Tanzania. Amboseli, however, offers one of the best vantage points to view the spectacular summit of Kilimanjaro because of its close proximity to the border.
On a clear day, travellers may see Mount Kilimanjaro towering over the surrounding area from Amboseli. The park served as a refuge for Tim, an exceptional bull elephant. With his height and recognisable tusks that touched the ground, this gigantic leviathan swiftly rose to prominence as one of the top attractions. He was believed to be over 50 years old when he passed away from natural causes on February 5, 2020.
Amboseli National Park has little vegetation brought on by the prolonged dry seasons, This makes the park have some of the best chances of wildlife viewing with animals such as African bush elephant, Cape buffalo, impala, lion, cheetah, spotted hyena, Maasai giraffe, Grant’s zebra, and blue wildebeest can all be found in the protected region. There are also several little and huge birds.
The park is renowned for being the best location in the world to come up close to elephants that are roaming freely. The park also offers visitors the chance to interact with Maasai and see a Maasai village.
Samburu National Reserve
On the banks of the Ewaso Nyiro in Laikipia, northern Kenya, the Samburu National Reserve is a popular safari location. On a Kenya safari, the Grevy zebra, Somali ostrich, reticulated giraffe, gerenuk, and Beisa oryx can only be seen in the Samburu National Reserve, which is a fantastic safari destination home to a variety of animal species, including the northern rare animal species. The three big cats—lions, cheetahs, and African leopards—can be seen in the Samburu National Reserve. In addition to the previously mentioned animals, the reserve also offers visitors the chance to see the big five—lions, elephants, leopards, buffaloes, and rhinoceroses.
Lake Nakuru National Park
One of Kenya’s most important parks is Lake Nakuru National Park. Lake Nakuru National Park which is accessed through Nairobi-Nakuru Highway takes three hours drive from Nairobi. It is situated south of Nakuru, the country’s fourth-largest town after Nairobi, Mombasa, and Kisumu. More than 50 mammal species as well as more than 400 bird species call it home. The lake is well-known for the high number of flamingos that live there and eat the lake’s algae. At times, there may even be more than a million of them. The main attractions of the park are the flamingos that can be found along the lake’s edge.
