“Why would I ever go back to the UK?” one expat tells me as we sit on the front porch of her farmhouse and sip local tea. “After living here, it would be so boring.” Looking across the vast green landscape toward the bulk of Mt. Kenya rising into the clouds, I can see her point. After all, there are lions and elephants out there in the bush! The unexpected is the normal as the country serves up an array of opportunities and disappointments that only the chaos of a developing nation can offer.
On the surface, Kenya is an easy country for a Westerner to visit. English is an official language and the legacy of British colonialism means that much of the culture seems familiar. The people are almost universally polite and considerate toward foreigners. The government is a relatively-stable democracy. The country has an established tourist infrastructure that is growing rapidly.
On the other hand, as I was told more than once by locals, “It is Africa, after all, and Africa always wins.” Trying to impose your own sense of order on this place is an exercise in frustration. Africa has her own ideas, and she seems to delight in causing inconvenience. If you’re driving in the rain at night, of course your car’s headlights will fail. As soon as you soap up in the shower, of course the water will stop. That mosquito net over your bed? Better not let your knee touch it while you sleep, or every mosquito in a hundred miles will crowd into the small patch of contact and suck half your blood during the night. For an American like me who is accustomed to an orderly world, Kenya is full of disorderly surprises.
Then again, disorderly surprises can also bring life’s greatest joys. That moment when a monkey joins you on the beach to watch the sunrise and you share a bag of chips. Seeing a herd of bright red wild elephants from the window of your train car. The first hot shower after a week in the bush. The Masai shepherd boy, no older than ten, who runs mightily for more than a mile in the adjacent field so he can intercept your car at the next intersection just to say hello.
I won’t lie, spending a month as a nomad in Kenya without the umbrella of an organized tour was difficult. We dealt with corrupt police and immigration officials, truly awful roads and spectacularly disastrous plumbing—once even getting a nasty electrical shock from a shower faucet in a guest house that was also probably a brothel. If we’d hired a safari tour company to organize our visit, none of this would have happened. We would have been whisked through the tourist areas of Kenya in a sanitized bubble built solely for foreigners, protected from reality of life. Neither of us wanted that experience. We knew from the outset that our low-budget mode of self-planned nomadic travel would result in questionable lodging, bad food, and difficult situations. We also knew that traveling without the filter of an organized tour would enable us to experience unique and wonderful things no regular tourist would ever see. We knew we would have lower lows, but we also knew that the higher highs would more than make up for it
For thirty days my wife and I were immersed in the chaos, and in this post I’ll shared what we learned and give our advice to anybody who is planning a visit to Kenya. I’ll tell you what we did to prepare back in the States before we left, such as inoculations, documentation, reservations and packing our backpacks for an extended stay in multiple climate zones. I’ll tell you about our experience getting our visas, dealing with money and telephone SIM cards, how we handled safety and security, and lots more. But first, and perhaps most importantly, I want to pass on some crucial advice that I was once given about embarking on a difficult journey.
Your Attitude
I was once on a long and strenuous hike with a friend when I started complaining about how miserable I felt. I was hot and sticky with sweat; my muscles and joints screamed in pain. After listening to me grumble for a while, he turned to me and poked me in the chest with his trekking pole. “Dude,” he said, his voice tinged with exasperation at my whining, “Sometimes you just gotta embrace the suck.” Later that day, after we summited the peak and were sitting in the sunshine enjoying one of the most spectacular mountain vistas I’ve ever seen, I realized he was right. In order to get to the top, you have to push through the hardships and recognize that they are the rungs on the ladder you are climbing. Each step higher, each painful rung ascended, brings you closer to joy. If you celebrate the hardships, “embracing the suck” as my friend advised me, then the climb itself becomes, if not exactly pleasant, then at least pleasantly memorable.
Budget travel in the developing world can often be an exercise in “embracing the suck.” As long as you remember that for every unexpected setback there is an equally unexpected delight, you’ll have a journey far more memorable and enjoyable than the average tourist.
Before you go: visas, inoculations and other official stuff
I’ll start with the things you need to do before you leave.
- Get your passports in order, and make sure they aren’t expired (and don’t expire during your trip). We had a problem that our passport pages were almost completely filled from previous trips. Since most countries require a blank page for visa stamps, we had to replace our passports even though they weren’t expired. If you go through normal channels, it can take more than a month to receive a passport, so get them early. If you need a last minute passport, there are services that can get you a new passport in a day or two, but they are very expensive.
- Get additional passport photos printed and take them with you. They’ll come in handy if you lose your passport or need them for a visa application. We had digital copies of both of our passports and passport photos that I kept in a special photo album on my phone. Photos of both are required if you apply for online visas, plus it’s always a good idea to have a digital record of your passport.
- Get your recommended inoculations at least a month in advance of travel. Some vaccines require multiple treatments that must be administered several days apart, so it can take some time to get them all. Check the Centers for Disease Control website for current required vaccinations. In the United States, your county health department can often provide the necessary vaccines for free or for low cost.
- Apply for a Kenyan e-visa, which is an online application process that supposedly takes seven days and results in a visa document you can print and take with you. According to the official Kenyan immigration website, an e-visa will speed you through the lines on your arrival in Kenya. WARNING: when we tried to apply, the website wasn’t working properly and we lost our $100 fee. The supposed helpline telephone numbers didn’t work, either. We arrived in Kenya without a visa, which ended up being a good thing because the line in the Nairobi airport for visa-on-arrival was far shorter than the line for holders of e-visas. Additionally, if you are white and appear as clueless as we did, you may, like us, be singled out for special treatment by the immigration officials, which turned out to be an ingenious corruption scheme. Click the links to read about our visa experiences.
- Call your mobile phone provider and make sure your phone is unlocked and can accept a foreign SIM card. Unless your trip is short, a week or less, it doesn’t make sense to pay the ridiculous international roaming charges American telecom companies charge. It is FAR less expensive to simply purchase a local SIM card when you arrive in Kenya, which also has the added benefit of giving you a local Kenyan telephone number. Keep your home SIM card for when you return home. Also, if your planning a trip longer than a couple of weeks, you can usually call your telephone provider and have them suspend billing while you’re away, which can save you considerable money.
- Sign up for WhatsApp while you’re still at home, link it to your home phone number, and let all your friends know you’ll be using it while abroad for all communications. Even if you get a Kenyan SIM card and phone number, your friends and family can still call you using your original home phone number as long as they use WhatsApp. Plus, it’s free.
- I also signed up for a Skype number and purchased five dollars of calling credit, which allowed me to call any number in the world, including land lines. This turned out to be handy when I needed to call my father, who doesn’t have a mobile phone, or my few stubborn friends who didn’t want to get WhatsApp.
ATMS, shillings, MPESA and SIM Cards
The monetary unit of Kenya is the shilling. As of this writing in late 2019, 1,000 shillings is worth almost exactly 10 dollars, which, if you’re an American, makes currency conversion a breeze—simply move the decimal place two positions to the left. Something than costs 10,000 shillings is $100. There are ATMS everywhere in Kenya. Just be aware that they dispense bills in 500 and 1000 shilling notes, so if you get, say, $400 worth of shillings, the stack of bills dispensed is about an inch thick, and won’t fit in your wallet.
Kenya also has a truly ingenious mobile banking scheme called MPESA that works everywhere, even in the most remote bush village. As long as two parties each have cell phones, they can exchange money. Every tiny little roadside stall, every vegetable vendor, every taxi driver accepts MPESA. Essentially, it turns your phone provider into your bank. We didn’t really understand how it worked until the last few days of our trip, so we never signed up for it, and I regret it. There were many, many instances where we could’ve easily gotten out of cash-strapped scrapes if we’d had MPESA. Some things, like buying online tickets for the railway system, require MPESA. I highly encourage you to do a little research on MPESA before you go, and get set up as soon as you arrive, especially if you’re planning to be in the country for an extended period. Note that MPESA may not work with all telecom companies, but it certainly works with Safaricom, the country’s leading network provider.
Speaking of mobile telcom, you’re in luck. Kenya has a robust mobile network with very broad coverage. We bought our sim card right in baggage claim when we first arrived at the Nairobi airport. Prices were very reasonable. We paid about $20 for 10GB of data for 30 days, plus a voice line that gave us a local phone number. We used Telkom because we didn’t know any better, but most of the locals we met recommended Safaricom.
Getting around
For our month in Kenya we used a variety of transportation methods, including a rental car, taxis, Uber, tuk-tuks, trains and the ubiquitous, battered and ridiculously overcrowded minivans called matatus. Here’s my order of precedence:
TUK-TUKS: these little motorcycle rickshaws are super cheap and fun, easy to hail, and the drivers will sometimes even provide local tours. If you need to get from your lodging to a nearby grocery store or restaurant, a tuk-tuk is the way to go. I didn’t see many of them in Nairobi, but they were plentiful in the coastal towns and many villages.
UBER: In Kenya, taxis are difficult because you have to negotiate the price. If you’re obviously a foreigner, you can bet the price will be grossly inflated. On our arrival I paid $40 for a taxi to my hotel. When later I used an Uber for the exact same trip, it was $7, and without the hassle of negotiating with a pushy driver. Be aware that there is an entire industry at the Nairobi airport geared toward shoving you into a high-priced taxi. Don’t fall for it. Buy a SIM card before you leave the terminal and summon an Uber as you walk out the door.
MATATUS: You have to be very, very adventurous to ride a matatu. These battered and colorful Toyota minivans are everywhere, careening dangerously through traffic, belching smoke, completely stuffed with human bodies. People jump on and off sometimes while the vehicle is still in motion. There’s a driver, and usually an assistant who collects the money. I don’t pretend to understand how it works. In our month in-country, we worked up the courage to ride a matatu only once, and it was probably the single most uniquely Kenyan thing we did the whole time. If you can figure out the system, you can get anywhere cheap. We just never figured it out.
RENTAL CAR: Self-driving in Kenya can be hair raising unless you have experience driving on the left, and dealing with Afro-Asian traffic culture and driving rules. Except at a few intersections in Nairobi, there are no traffic signals, and except for a few miles of expressway, we never saw a single traffic sign. The traffic police are incredibly corrupt, demanding fees for non-existent violations. Knowing all this, we rented a Toyota RAV4 for two weeks and drove thousands of kilometers across much of the country. It was quite expensive, likely the most expensive single line-item of the entire month, but it was worth it. I drove slowly and carefully (constantly chanting to myself “look right, keep left”). It turns out Kenyans aren’t bad drivers, they just play by a completely different set of rules. Once you learn the rules (by watching your taxi drivers and asking a lot of questions), it becomes pretty easy to drive. Kenyans drivers were generally patient with me when I made mistakes. One tip from a local ex-pat which we saw worked for her: if a roadside traffic cop tries to wave you down, don’t stop, they’ll just extort you for money. Instead, smile and wave like a naïve tourist and drive on by. You can always claim ignorance later in the unlikely event the technique backfires. I’m planning to write another post giving driving advice to Americans who want to drive in Kenya—stay tuned.
TRAIN: The standard-gauge railroad (SGR) between Narobi and Mombasa is a modern, Chinese-built transportation system that may be the best deal in all of Africa. The quiet and clean train cars have big windows and comfortable seats, and the six-hour ride goes right through the middle of the world-famous Tsavo National Parks. It cost about ten dollars, and you may see more wildlife from the comfort of your train seat than you would for a multi-hundred-dollar game drive in a bumpy 4X4. We saw the famous red elephants, giraffe, zebra, a bazillion antelope and gazelle, waterbucks, camels, etc. We also met some interesting and engaging locals along the way. The SGR train ride is HIGHLY recommended. Just remember, it’s best to book your tickets several days in advance. If you want to book online, you must use MPESA to pay (since we had not signed up for MPESA, we had a local friend buy our tickets and we reimbursed her).
Safety and Security
Kenyans are ultra-paranoid about security. You will pass through more metal detectors and receive more pat-downs in one day in Kenya than in a year in America. It seems entirely excessive, but then again, Kenya has seen some difficult times with terrorism in the past few decades. Just be aware that before you go into any public building, including your hotel and even the grocery store, your vehicle will be searched, you will walk through a metal detector and your bags will be inspected, and you will most likely also get a gentle pat-down (though my experience is that if you’re a white tourist the security routine is usually quite cursory). Just accept the inconvenience and move along. The security guards are almost universally friendly. Give them a smile and a greeting and you will always receive the same in return. I think most of them are pretty bored with their jobs and enjoy the interaction.
I never felt unsafe in Kenya, not once during my entire stay. My wife and I walked alone on the streets of the cities, towns, even the rural tribal villages. We used commonsense safety practices we would use anywhere in the world. We didn’t wear expensive watches or jewelry. I didn’t carry around my DSLR camera in plain sight. We never walked alone at night. I gave a friendly greeting and a smile to everyone we passed. Almost always, my greeting was returned with a wide smile, even from the most jaded-looking and scowling people. I know there are bad people out there, but in my experience it’s not that hard to avoid them with a little common sense.
Hotels and homestays
Without a doubt our most memorable experiences, good and bad, have come from staying in guesthouses instead of hotels. A guest house is usually a local home where the owner rents rooms to travelers. In a good guesthouse the hosts are amazing founts of local knowledge. Any time we travel to a new country, we make it a point to always try to stay in a highly-rated guest house for the first day or two. You’ll learn the local customs in a safe environment, you’ll get unbiased advice, valuable references for drivers and guides, and you’ll probably come away with a whole new set of friends, including the hosts and your fellow guests, who you’ll interact with in a family environment.
This held true for Kenya, where we stayed in a variety of guesthouses both in the city and in rural areas. We had mostly good luck, the accommodations ranged from acceptable to spectacular, and the hosts were almost universally wonderful people. We did stay at one place near the Nairobi airport that, based on the loud and enthusiastic activities of the other patrons, was probably a brothel, but even that experience was memorable and will make for good stories down the road.
Here’s the thing about guesthouses. When you’re looking for a good one, be aware that the review scores on sites like Booking.com can sometimes be misleading. This isn’t due to any mistruth or deception, it’s a result of demographic perception. The people who tend to stay at budget guesthouses have a different standard than people who stay at five star hotels. A Hilton with a 9.0 rating and a budget guesthouse with a 9.0 rating will NOT have the same level of comfort or service. We learned about this phenomenon at the brothel—the kind of people who stay here love this place, and gave it high ratings!
In order to avoid this trap, you mustn’t rely on the review score alone to select a guesthouse. READ THE REVIEWS. You can always get a good sense of whether the place is appropriate for your taste by reading the words (and tone) of the reviews. Try to find a highly-rated guesthouse whose reviews were written by people like yourself.
In this regard, I far prefer AirBNB to commercial sites like Booking.com. AirBNB is widely used in Kenya, and the most delightful homestays and guesthouses of our entire month were booked with AirBNB. Look for Superhosts, and don’t be afraid to rent a bedroom in somebody’s house. Our experience is that you’ll usually be treated like family, and you’ll get a far deeper view into Kenyan culture than you could get by any other means. We always look for homestays with at least ten guest reviews of 4.8 or higher.
As for hotels, they tend to be impersonal. They are either geared to providing bland comfort to the business class, or they are geared to serving tour operators. As an independent budget traveler, you are the desired target of neither type of hotel. Having said this, the fact that a good business class hotel usually has hot showers, decent food and cleans sheets (not to mention working wifi) make them perfect occasional breaks from the sometimes exhausting routine of budget nomad travel. We stayed in two high-end hotels for two nights each during our month in Kenya, and they were boring but utterly fabulous!
Weather
Kenya is a big country with multiple climate zones. We visited in November, which is in what they call the “Little Rainy Season.” Most days were sunny, though when it did rain, it came down as thunderbolt-style gully-washers that washed away roads and flooded fields. As for temperature, the highlands and the Rift Valley were delightfully mild to cool (shorts during the day, sweaters in the evenings), while the coast and beaches were miserably, oppressively hot and humid (the few days we spent in an un-airconditioned beach house during a heat-wave was positively hellish and took a serious, albeit temporary, toll on our health). If you go to the coast, sped a little extra and get air conditioning.
Safaris and Wildlife
If you believe the tour guide web sites and the tourist books from Barnes & Noble, you’ll think that the only way to see wildlife in Kenya is to book a $10,000 stay at a safari lodge. This is NOT TRUE. You can get the exact same wildlife experience for a hundred dollars or less, and you can usually book a driver/guide without any advanced planning (though its best to book at least a day in advance). Many of the parks even allow you to drive your own car into the park for a small fee (though your rental car company may not allow it). We went on several fabulous games drives in several national parks by simply asking our homestay host to recommend a local driver.
Tips and Tricks
GPS: GPS is an absolute necessity when driving in Kenya. There are ZERO road signs. Our experience is that Google Maps would usually get us in the vicinity of our destination, though not always to the destination itself. Many times we had to backtrack, to ask for directions. However, without it, we would have been completely and utterly lost. Because some of the more remote regions of the country lack mobile data service, I used Google Maps’ offline map mode often. While I was still in Nairobi, I used wifi to download most of the areas of Kenya to my phone. This gave me the ability to use some of Google Maps’ functionality while in areas without mobile data service. As a second level of security, I also downloaded a fully-offline GPS navigation app called Sygic. Though its navigation functionality is primitive compared to Google Maps and the routes it suggested were sometimes questionable, I did use it to get out of a couple of scrapes where Google Maps failed us completely. Finally, before we left the States, we’d also purchased a detailed Michelin paper roadmap of Kenya from Amazon. There were many nights we spent with the big paper map spread open on the table, poring over it and planning our routes.
CHARGERS AND PLUGS: If you’re just going to Kenya and nowhere else, you should purchase the specific three-pronged Kenyan electrical adapter from Amazon before leaving home. However, if you’re like us and will be visiting many countries, there a trick that a local showed me that will allow you to use a standard European two-prong plug adapter in a Kenyan socket. So, if you’re coming from a country that uses the standard two-prong Euro-plug, or if you’re an American with a common Euro adapter, you can make it work in a standard Kenyan socket. DISCLAIMER: For all I know the hack could get you killed, but it worked dozens of times for me without issue for me while I was in Kenya. I’m not going to give you detailed instructions because I don’t want to get sued, but you can find the technique with a little YouTubing or Googling (or simply ask a Kenyan).
TIPPING: I’ll admit that I’m a big tipper. The average Kenyan, especially in rural areas, earns one-tenth the salary of the average American in the same job, so a standard, American-style tip to a food server or taxi driver can make a real difference to them. This sometimes means that the tip is bigger than the amount I owe. For example, on a tuk-tuk ride than costs the American equivalent of twenty-five cents, I’ll tip a dollar or two over the fare (or more, if I really like the driver). You may think I’m wasting money but I don’t care what you think. It’s the right thing to do. Except for service workers in resorts and big tourist facilities, Kenyans don’t expect tips at all, so any extra gratuity you give will be a delight. Be aware, though, that in tourist restaurants a service charge is often added to your bill, so keep that in mind when you calculate the amount you want to tip.
Summary
Kenya is equal parts difficult and rewarding for a Westerner who is visiting outside the standard safari-tour schemes. With sites like AirBNB and Booking.com, however, it is getting much easier. You’’ll discover that most of your homestay hosts can arrange last-minutes guides for game safaris, make reservations at amazing local restaurants where you’ll get authentic food, and educate you to the ins-and-outs of local culture. If your experience is anything like ours, you’ll probably also make some new life-friends out of the hosts and the other guests.
Remember, life is short, the planet is big and fabulous, and the time to live is right now.
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