Diani Beach
Diani Beach is perhaps the best beach in Kenya. It is wide, silvery, palm shaded, and reef fringed, with some sandbars in the lagoon that are exposed at low tide for excursions from the hotels in dugouts or glass-bottomed boats. There is a good balance of places to stay, places to eat, sea and land-based activities, and various spots to drink and party a little.
Tsavo East National Park
It is more than 13,700 square kilometers and is most famous for its huge herds of dust-red elephants that more than 10,000 of them bulldoze the way around the vast park. Tsavo East is mostly a vast flat plain of sandy soil, split by the shallow trough of the Galana River.
The plant communities of Tsavo East are dominated by short grasses, thorn bushes, and two major species of tree. The baobab is the iconic tree of Tsavo West National Park, across the Mombasa highway, but you still find significant numbers of these compelling trees, with their enormous trunks and stumpy branches. They form important habitats for many species of birds and insects, you will often see hornbills using holes in baobabs to nest in.
On wildlife densities, short-maned Tsavo lions and cheetahs appear often. All the plains grazers and bush browsers are much in evidence and elephants with big tusks are many, surging across the river, wallow in the waterholes, and file over the red earth roads in front of bulging baobab trees.
Despite being in southeast Kenya, Tsavo East is zoologically associated with northern Kenya, meaning you will see long-necked gerenuk and Somali ostrich, the male of which has a blue neck and legs, and introduced herds of the handsome, fine-striped, Grevy’s zebra. There is also a breeding population of black rhinos, closely monitored by rangers who track them through the bush, though very few travelers on Tsavo East safaris are lucky enough to see them.
