Tsavo
Kenya’s largest park: red elephants, lava flows and the road to the coast.
Photograph: · CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Why people go
Tsavo East and West together make up the largest protected area in Kenya, and they sit directly on the Nairobi–Mombasa road and railway. That geography is the point: it is the natural stop between a safari and the beach.
The soil is volcanic red, and the elephants dust themselves in it until they are the same colour — the Tsavo red elephant is not a marketing invention.
Tsavo West has the Mzima Springs walk, where you watch hippo and fish through a glass tank fed by springs from the Chyulu Hills, and the Shetani lava flow, which is only a few hundred years old.
What you will actually do
- Red elephants, dusted in volcanic soil
- Mzima Springs underwater viewing chamber
- Shetani lava flow and the Chyulu Hills
- The natural break between Nairobi and the coast