Category: Travel
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In the land of lava and leopards
As they scouted Tsavo West in the early ‘60s, the developers of Kilaguni would have been spoilt for choice while deliberating the location of Kenya’s first park lodge. 60 years on, and the site they settled on still ranks highly among the country’s top safari destinations. The lodge’s long thatched terrace frames a spectacular panorama: […]
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A night in Naivasha
The rapid rise of Airbnb over the past decade has transformed the way we travel. There are now over six million rooms, flats and houses listed on the Airbnb website, in 100,000 cities and towns across the globe. The affordability of these rentals, relative to the cost of staying in a hotel, is central to […]
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Camping at the Rocky Mountain
Both mornings we woke to the calls of francolins. I used to have them as the ringtone on my mobile phone – until a friend pointed out that it sounded like someone having fun on an old spring mattress. At any time of day when at our tent – one of those luxury-style tents, with […]
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A Night in the Forest
I’ve enjoyed plenty of gamedrives in Nairobi National Park over the years, but few as much as my drive in the park last Saturday evening. An overnight shower had washed the air clean of dust, and the city lights shone bright against a lilac sky. We trundled along a rocky track near the park’s Middle […]
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Exploring Oloolua Forest
Last week’s article was all about the new Land Rover Defender, which I had the opportunity to test in Oloolua Forest. The dirt tracks that we used were beneath the SGR, which runs right across the southern portion of the forest. I’ve written a few articles for this column recently about Nairobi’s forests, and the […]
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A Review of the New Defender
I don’t envy the designers at Land Rover. Creating the new Defender must have been one of the most challenging jobs of the automotive world. The old models have been adored across the globe for decades, for their flaws as much as their off-road capabilities. Their designs were simple, rugged and instantly recognisable. The new […]
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A Night on the Sacred Mountain
‘Maape!’. ‘Let’s go!’. Our Samburu guide, Lemaiyan, urged us to continue our climb after a long water break. The mid-morning heat had been turned up a notch, and our progress was slow. We zigzagged up the eastern slope of Mount Ololokwe, along a path well trodden by elephants and cattle. Stumbling under the weight of […]
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Driving Kenya’s Roads
‘I think you could well be interested in this,’ a friend said, as she handed over a book. It was the AA Members Handbook for 1982-84: ‘Guide to Motoring and Touring in Kenya’. I was certainly well interested – particularly, because it was published around the time I came back to Kenya to stay. Gavin […]
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Life and Death on the Mara River
Of the 1.5 million wildebeest that trek into the Masai Mara from the Serengeti each year, an average of 300,000 die, most while crossing the Mara River. While death at such a scale may seem senseless, it plays a vital role in the nourishment of the river ecosystem for years after the dust settles.
Going Places Africa 