Nairobi National Park

A bush experience on the borders of a bustling city

What makes this park so special is that it’s situated right on Nairobi’s city limits (in fact, the city is growing around the park) – and within a 20-minute drive from the airport, you can be watching rhinos graze contentedly or lions dozing under bushes.
The park is home to Kenya Wildlife Service’s headquarters; as a result the game is very well protected and Nairobi National Park has become something of sanctuary to rhinos, and there is a population of around 60. The park is mostly open grasslands, and you’re almost guaranteed of seeing hartebeest, zebra and giraffe. There is a healthy population of lions too, and one evening we watched a pride of about 15 – including many cubs – laze about as the sun set.
There are now two lodges within the park: The Emakoko, a very comfortable lodge set in small valley, with suites that look out through fever trees, and Nairobi Tented Camp, which is set in a beautiful forested ravine. If you’re travelling to Kenya for a safari experience, it’s well worth booking into one of these lodges, as you’ll not waste any time getting into bush mode.

worth a visit if staying in Nairobi. Not a large amount of wildlife
Nairobi National Park is a unique ecosystem by being the only protected area in the world close to a capital city. The park is located only 7 km from Nairobi city centre

Nairobi National Park is not one of the best parks to visit in Kenya. If you are coming to Kenya specifically for safari, there are so many bigger and more beautiful parks and reserves in Kenya with greater variety of wildlife. However, I had already been to most of the other big tourist destination parks in Kenya and I had an extra day in Nairobi, so I decided to book a day safari in Nairobi National Park and I'm glad I did. Although it's not as wonderful as the Maasai Mara, Samburu, Tsavo, or any of the other big parks, it is still a wonderful little retreat into Kenya's wildlife that lies just outside the main area of the city. I was a little disappointed with the variety of the wildlife. I asked my guide why we weren't seeing lions or rhinos and he pointed towards the more heavily forested areas where the roads didn't go, and he said they mostly hid over there. We did, however, still see a lot of animals such as giraffe, zebra, many types of antelopes, buffaloes, ostriches, etc. My guide also took me to an area where I was allowed to get out of the vehicle and an armed guard took me for a short walk in search of hippos. We couldn't see them, but we could hear them on the other side of the river breathing loudly and making their unique vocalization. It was very enjoyable. For a 1 day excursion within Nairobi, I enjoyed it very much.

A quiet drive with rhino and lion on the move.

Even though we had an inexperienced driver who got lost, we had a lovely day. But we saw a lot of animals on the savannah. Zebras, ostriches, antelopes, giraffes but also rhinoceros and a single lioness hunting. Female lion was suddenly on the road in front of our jeep. It was special to be Nairobi National Park with city skyline in the background. I would highly recommend people to visit the park.

The best chance to see a black rhino in Kenya

Nairobi National Park is the only option of gamedrive entertainment while in Nairobi. It is fenced and the city center skyline and tidy roads always recall you that you are in an urban area. There are most of times antelopes like zebras,coke hartbeasts, impalas, giraffes, and also warthogs, and a good variety of birds, including eagles and ibis as the most interesting. Despite there are a couple of lion prides, including big males that they keep track of, we could never seen one single lion in our 4 visits to this park, and then the most interesting animal to spot there is the black rhino, a rare and critically endangered species that is easy to spot in the park, so this is the best attraction of the park. Guides provided by the lodges and camps are usually not good spotters, in our experience. We have tried already the Nairobi Tented Camp and the Emakoko, both inside the park. The Emakoko is in a beautiful site and the accommodations are excellent and food as well, we recommend it as the first choice, but be careful with their arrangements to take you to/from airport as their location in the very inner portion of the park it may have roads restrictions that require them to cross long distances to reach the park gates (just add a good time contingency to avoid losing flights, we almost lost ours!). Nairobi tented is fine too, but food is not so good as in Emakoko, and the staff is less prepared as well, accommodations are good enough.

Convenient

Nairobi National Park is pleasant, but its biggest perk is its closeness to the capital city of Nairobi. There was a reasonable variety of animals, such as zebra, giraffe and antelope. There were reportedly some lions nearby, but we weren't able to see them.

Good for a day trip, but if you want a more thorough safari experience you will have to go further afield.

Wildlife right next to Nairobi

This was my second trip to Kenya and I really wanted to see NNP. When we first entered the park we saw our first white rhinos of the trip and some giraffes with the city of Nairobi in the background. That was pretty surreal. We did not see a ton of wildlife but when we did see the animals, it was great. We saw lions, eland, zebras, gazelle, hartebeest, ostrich, quite a few birds and other wildlife and even a green mamba snake. It was really cool to see all the whistling acacia trees. All in all it was a nice park right outside the city so very convenient. The weather was mostly cool and overcast. I'm glad I made it to NNP.

Convenient location from Nairobi.

We were able to see most animals pretty easy. the park is very close to the city and is easy to get to, however from a scenery aspect you can see the city from most places. When selecting a guide make sure they have a land cruiser or similar, we had a small van and we got stuck in the mud for almost three hours. We had limited time so the National park worked well. If you go I recommend the Elephant Orphanage it was a nice stop.

Not as many animals, very close to the city and worth the visit if you can't get out the bigger parks.

It was okay..

Everytime l could see the City from a distance. It sadens me tht the animals always have to adjust to humans..

All in all not bad!