Road tripping in Tsavo East National Park – By far is the largest park in Kenya, it covers about 4 percent of the country (about the same size as Massachusetts). It’s officially split into two parks, Tsavo East and West, divided by the main Nairobi – Mombasa Road and contact us and we will offer you best 4×4 rooftop tent cars suitably mechanically maintained and offers amazing wilderness stay.

It’s also linked to the Chyulu Hills National Park to the west, Tanzania’s Mkomazi Game Reserve and various private game conservancies spreading the gigantic swathe of protected land still further to the size of a medium-sized country.

Tsavo East covers 11,747 sq. kms (4,536 sq. miles), but around two-thirds of the park are more or less closed to visitors, with few roads and no accommodation, although walking and camping safaris do go in and there are canoe safaris on the Athi River. It was along the Tsavo East section that the infamous the man-eating eating lions snatched 142 unfortunate railway workers in the 1890s.

With very limited accommodation in a huge area, you almost feel like you’ve got the place to yourself. Everything is here which always gives me a sense of anticipation: you never know what you’ll find around the corner or over that hill. This isn’t a place where guides are calling each other on their radios non-stop. What you find, you find by yourself.

Game viewing isn’t as productive as in some of the other great parks in Kenya, but you’ll always see something interesting. The park is home to the very localized, rare fringe-eared oryx and lesser kudu is often seen darting off into the bushes. Most of the park seems to be made of wide-open spaces and elephants and giraffes can usually be spotted on their way to nowhere or so it seems.

Road tripping in Tsavo West National Park

The vast and uninhabited plains of Tsavo West are high on my list of favourite Kenyan safari destinations. Wildlife densities are much lower here than the Maasai Mara or even Tsavo’s another half away to the east.

But the shaggy manned lions of Tsavo – descendants of the legendary man-eaters of Tsavo – are one of East Africa’s more memorable sights and easily seen, while some of my best-ever leopard sightings were in Tsavo West’s Rhino Valley, in the shadow of the dramatic Ngulia Hills.

Buffalo and red-hued elephants are also common, while the 90-sq-km Ngulia Rhino Sanctuary, complete with armed guards, has been a huge success in bringing the black rhino back from the brink of extinction there are around fifty black rhinos in the sanctuary, with another 15 or so having been released into the wider park.

In addition to the chance to see all members of the Big Five in a single day, Tsavo West has a lonely, lost-in-Africa feel to it, a feeling you won’t find anywhere else in Kenya.

Tsavo West is far more heavily developed for tourism than Tsavo East. It’s here that you will find most of the luxury lodges, within easy reach of the main road, set on the slopes of the Chyulu Hills. Some lodges such as the stunning Kilaguni Serena Lodge have superb views across to Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Road tripping in Masai Mara National Reserve

Kenya’s best-known reserve, it’s everything you would expect of an African wilderness area; rolling plains, rocky outcrops, and deep green winding rivers full of hippos and crocs. Its animal diversity is one of the greatest in East Africa and all of the Big 5 is easily found.

Nevertheless, you can’t beat the drama of the Mara, a massive migratory herd of wildebeest and their zebra friends marching across the plains, a cheetah making a mad dash through the grassland, a group of hyena squabbling over a carcass, or a hungry croc dramatically rising from the waters in the Mara River. Its popularity and appeal are also because the Mara offers a varied choice of safari options across most budgets.

For a start you can either get there by air or road, and accommodation ranges from large family-friendly lodges in the reserve, super-luxurious and intimate camps in one of the conservancies or group ranches, to budget Banda/tented accommodation outside Talek, Sekenani and Ololaimutiek gates. But whatever your safari arrangements are for the Masai Mara, you can be sure of plenty of dazzling animal action.

Road tripping on Lake Nakuru National Park

Lake Nakuru’s compactness and varied landscapes are instantly likeable, and it’s ideal for first-time safari-goers and families. Lake Nakuru is one of the few in Kenya that’s fenced in its entirety, may be a little lacking in wilderness character, but it has traditionally been included on a high proportion of safari itinerary for two main reasons: flamingos and rhinos.

Historically, the more important of these attractions was the million-strong aggregations of flamingo that once frequented the shallows of Lake Nakuru. However, this phenomenon has always been rather unpredictable, and since 2012 the flamingos have been absent altogether due to a change in the water levels. Fortunately, Nakuru still supports exceptionally high densities of both species of rhino, which have been introduced here because it is relatively easy to monitor for poachers.

The larger and more peaceable white rhino is abundant on the grassy lake floodplain, where it is more easily seen than in any other East African national park. The smaller, crankier and more secretive black rhino tends to stick to the thick acacia woodland south of the lake, where it is quite common, but often challenging to locate.

Other wildlife likely to be seen in Lake Nakuru National Park includes the localized Rothschild’s giraffe, plentiful buffalo and water buck, and small numbers of lion and leopard. And even without flamingos, this small national park – listed as a Ramsar wetland and Important Bird Area supports a remarkably diverse and exciting avi-fauna, with impressive flocks of great white pelican the stars of a checklist that extends to 450 species.

Road tripping in Amboseli National Park

There are two dominant images of Amboseli. The first is the spectacular views afforded of Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain, whose peak actually lies across the border in Tanzania, but is nowhere seen to such advantage as from the plains of Amboseli, most frequently revealing itself from its cloudy blanket at dusk or dawn. The other is the mighty tuskers arguably the most habituated population in East Africa that range outside the park by night, but aggregate there by day, to forage in a series of lush marshes fed by underground streams that rise on Kilimanjaro.

These marshes also support an excellent selection of plovers, herons and other water-associated birds, while back on terra forms, the park is home to large herds of buffalo, zebra, wildebeest and various antelope. The marshy areas are also excellent birding spots.