Tsavo National Park, divided into Tsavo East and Tsavo West by the Nairobi–Mombasa road, covers over 20,800 km² and forms the largest wildlife area in Kenya. Together they represent one of Africa’s great wilderness expanses, wild, remote, and dramatically different in character from the manicured grasslands of the Mara.
Tsavo East is characterised by flat open plains cut by the Galana River, where red-dust elephants, their skins stained crimson by the local volcanic soil, gather in enormous herds. The Lugard Falls on the Galana River are a natural spectacle where the river is channelled through a series of rock gorges and pools. The Yatta Plateau running along the park’s northern edge is the world’s longest lava flow at 290 km.
Tsavo West is more varied and visually dramatic, a landscape of volcanic hills, swamps, and the famous Mzima Springs, where 250 million litres of crystal-clear water bubble up daily from underground lava filtration. An underwater viewing chamber allows visitors to watch hippos and Nile crocodiles from below the surface. The Shetani lava fields, black basalt flows just 200 years old from the last volcanic eruption, create an eerie, otherworldly landscape.
Tsavo also shelters a small population of black rhinos, managed carefully through the park’s anti-poaching programme.
Location: Tsavo is conveniently situated between Nairobi (4 hours) and the Kenyan coast, making it an ideal add-on to a beach and safari combination holiday.
