6-Day Wild Kenya Camping Safari

Six days of camping through the Kenya the Mara crowds skip.

You start at the foot of Mt Kenya and finish in the Aberdare moorland, with a semi-desert river reserve and an elephant forest in between. Five very different places in six days. Most nights you camp inside the reserve or forest itself. The noises outside your tent are the real ones.

Mt Kenya: Camping under the peaks

The mountain is simply there when you camp at its base. Wake early and the sun comes up behind the peaks. A guide leads you about 9km through forest and out onto open moorland to Lake Ellis, a small lake at roughly 3,500m with the summits standing over it. The heather grows giant up here and the air is thin. Swimming is optional. The water is blue-green and cold enough to make you shout. Floating there with the mountain above you is the bit people remember. Nights are clear and cold, and the stars over Mt Kenya are hard to beat.

Samburu: Hyenas in the dark

Samburu is dry scrub and red earth, cut through by the brown Ewaso Nyiro river. Elephants come down to drink. The reserve is home to the Samburu Special Five: Grevy's zebra, reticulated giraffe, gerenuk, Beisa oryx and Somali ostrich. You won't see them in the Mara. Lions rest near the river and leopards work the riverside thickets.

You camp inside the reserve. After dark hyenas call across the bush and they sound very close. A night ranger watches over camp all night. You can lie in your tent and just listen.

Ngare Ndare: Forest and natural pools

The name means "where the animals drink" in Maa. Elephants have used this forest as a corridor between Mt Kenya and the north for centuries. A canopy walkway carries you about 450 metres through the trees, 20 metres off the ground. Down at the pools below the waterfalls a local ranger shows you where to swim. The water is cold again and the forest closes in around you. You camp among the trees.

The Aberdares: Highlands and waterfalls

Thayuini camp sits right on the park border. Colobus monkeys sit in the treetops around Zaina Falls and the forest there is indigenous. Local guides share the history of the Mau Mau freedom fighters at a heritage site. The Kikuyu consider this range sacred. A local dance group performs at the bonfire and you can try the local brew. In the tea country you walk between the bushes with a cup of local tea and listen to the people who farm there.

Higher up you camp at Reedbuck inside the national park. Chania Falls sits in open moorland. Queen's Cave is a historic site with a waterfall and a cave to explore. Karuru Falls drops close to 300 metres into a forested gorge and you can try trout fishing nearby if you fancy it. Each stop shows you a different side of the range. It gets properly cold at night up here, so bring layers.