Tsavo East National Park

Great game viewing in a very accessible park

Straddling the highway between Nairobi and Mombasa, Tsavo East and West together form the biggest park in Kenya. At over 20,000 square kilometres, the Tsavos cover four percent of the country’s land, and together are larger than Israel.
Tsavo East is the busier of the two parks in terms of visitor numbers, and is especially popular with day visitors who’re staying in Mombasa or along the coast. Voi Gate is the best place to enter, and the areas around here offer fantastic game viewing. There is a plain around Aruba Dam that is teeming with wildlife; when I was there, I saw a herd of elephants, buffalo, zebra, impala and a troop of baboons – at the same time – as well as a very shy jackal.
Tsavo East is neatly divided into north and south by the Galana River. Two-thirds of the park lies north of the Galana, but this area is essentially off-limits to visitors. South of the Galana, however, there is plenty of wildlife and most animals seem to be used to vehicles, so you have some fantastic opportunities to get good wildlife photographs.

At which I have only visited the East Tsavo Park . The territory is very special and typical, and also damaged. There aren't many animals, a few birds and a lot of tourists.
However, there are very typical and very beautiful scenery, especially along the Galana River.

Not as much wildilfe as Samburu or the Masai Mara but quieter, with less safari vehicles.

Great guides, loads of wildlife, fantastic lodges

A park that is not so crowed and where it is possible to enjoy wildlife experiences.

A wonderful experience.

We designed a safari for almost a year. East and West Tsavo seemed like a good option, so we booked trips for six months prior to departure. We spent the rest of our vacation in Mombasa.

The three-day safari surpassed all expectations. Lodges were excellent. It was strange to see all the exotic animals that walked past our bedroom window.

Guide / driver was excellent to find the animals. The first night we stayed at Voi Safari Lodge and the other at Ngulia Safari Lodge. I took about 800 photos and five hours of video.

I fell in love with Africa, I will return back there.

An Authentic, Accessible Experience

I was greatly impressed by the wildlife and scenery of Tsavo National Park. I was even more impressed by the accessibility.

As a working professional, my vacation days are limited. I had booked a week at a beach resort in Mombasa, intending nothing more than to escape the New York winter for a tropical beach while putting another country under my well-traveled belt. Going on safari was almost an afterthought.

After two days of beach, beer and sun, I decided to check out the wildlife. I asked the reception at my youth hostel for a safari recommendation. After one phone call on a borrowed cell phone and one taxi ride into downtown Mombasa to pay the fee (they took American Express) I was booked for an overnight Safari at Tsavo National Park.

We left Mombasa early in the morning, arriving at our hotel for lunch. I stayed at the Voi Wildlife Lodge, which I highly recommend! It combines modern amenities (including air conditioning: a pleasant luxury for Europeans but an absolute must for Americans) with incredible scenery. There are several swimming pools and an observation deck that stretches approximately 50m into the park and overlooks a watering hole.

The safari itself was very memorable. We saw elephants, giraffes, baboons, wildebeest, gazelles, dik diks, cheetahs, and we even saw a lioness in the morning! Our guide was a native Kenyan who spoke perfect English and what sounded to me like very good German. It rained, very briefly, as we were driving from Mombasa to Tsavo. Not a lot, but just enough for me to "Bless the rains down in Africa" as the song goes. Aside from that one drizzle the weather was invariably sunny and warm: 88 degrees for Americans, just under 30 for Europeans.

Tsavo was incredible, I can't emphasize that enough, but the biggest draw for me was the easy accessibility from both Mombasa and Nairobi. If I'd stayed longer, I would have included several other parks in addition to Tsavo. I would have liked to venture into Tanzania and perhaps checked out the island of Zanzibar. Sadly, I have a limited number of vacation days and a lot of world left to explore...

The most memorable wildlife experience of our lives!

We went to Tsavo when we were on our honeymoon, this is the first time we have done a safari and certainly will not be the last! We did two game drives a day, morning and afternoon, in between we were back at the lodges for our meals, all the food was beautiful, rooms to a high standard, staff very friendly and helpful, all the drives were very well organised, our driver was very knowledgeable about the wildlife and great fun to be with. I would recommend a safari for adults and grown up children only as the game drives are around 2-3 hours long with a lot of driving in between lodges etc. and young children perhaps wouldn't have the patience or be able to stay quiet around the animals. Overall it was the best holiday we have ever had, we saw all the big 5, made some wonderful friends and memories to last a lifetime and we will definately return one day!

Great wild life adventure

It was our first trip to Africa. We booked the unfenced Satao Camp. It was an amazing experience to be able to view the animals from our tent, comming to the water hole. All stuff at the camp are very friendly, brilliant service and food. We learned a lot about the nature and wildlife of Africa. We learned to love Africa. Our trip is more than a year ago, but we still dreaming of it and decided to go again to Africa latest next year.

We stayed at the former warden's house with a group of friends where we hired a cooked and maid. There happened to be 2 wells/water holes behind the house so it was amazing to see the elephants and buffalo in "our backyard", though a little scary. Lions roaring nearby was even scarier. The self-drive tours were just ok and we didn't try to do more. I wanted to see but did not the famous lions of Tsavo which are descendants of the man-eating lions which were infamous during the construction of the Mombasa to Kampala railroad.