Kenya · both parks since 1948
Twenty-two thousand square kilometres either side of the Nairobi to Mombasa highway, holding around forty per cent of Kenya's elephants. Red dust in the east, springs and lava in the west, and far fewer vehicles than the Mara.
Photo: Yakov Fedorov (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Tsavo East and Tsavo West sit either side of the Nairobi to Mombasa highway in south-eastern Kenya, Voi Gate serving the east and Mtito Andei Gate the west. Together they cover close to 22,000 square kilometres, Kenya's largest protected area.
This guide is written by someone who overlanded much of Africa in his own Land Cruiser with a rooftop tent, and for whom the national parks were what stayed. The information about them online was usually missing, wrong or years old: fees from three tariff sheets ago, camps that had closed, roads described by people who had never driven them.
So this guide runs on the park authority's own tariff document rather than a copied operator page, on thirty-year climate normals rather than brochure weather, and on what the camps tell us directly. Every claim carries a date. Where KWS is silent, so are we, apart from saying that it is silent.
Nothing here is for sale. Listing a camp is free and no position on any page can be bought. Some outbound links earn us a small commission, and that changes neither the order of a list nor a single figure on these pages.
Found something out of date? Tell us and it changes the same week.
Tsavo runs on distance and water in equal measure: long circuits between landmarks in the flat east, springs and lava country in the volcanic west.
In Tsavo East the classic circuit runs from Voi Gate through Kanderi Swamp to Aruba Dam. In Tsavo West it loops around Mzima Springs and the Shetani lava flow. Off-road driving is prohibited in both.
Photo: Visit Africa Publishers
An official KWS activity at $50 per person per day for groups of up to ten, one of the few ways to get out of the vehicle inside either park.
Photo: Visit Africa Publishers
A night game drive costs $50 per person and a balloon safari $80 per landing in park fees, both on top of whatever the operator charges.
Photo: Visit Africa Publishers
Thirty-seven lodges, camps and campsites across both parks. These four are not the best four; they are the four that mark out the range.
The cheapest way in
Twenty dollars a night on the Voi River, the only public campsite in the whole of Tsavo East, run by KWS itself.
Park-run, in Tsavo West
KWS's own eight-bed guest house at Kamboyo headquarters, self-catering, close to Mzima Springs and priced per house rather than per person.
Mid-range, on the water
Every window faces Aruba Dam, which has held water since 1952 and pulls elephant, lion and buffalo past the restaurant daily.
The top end
Seventeen tented suites raised over spring-fed pools beneath the Chyulu Hills, the name this site's own lodge page uses to mark the top of the range.
$80 per park per day, and the combination ticket with Amboseli that saves $35. Plus vehicle, camping and activity rates.
See the fees →Every lodge and campsite across both parks, from $20 KWS campsites to Finch Hattons, with ownership marked.
Browse lodges →Three hours from Nairobi, ninety minutes from Mombasa, or by train for four dollars. Just take the right one.
Plan the route →The red elephants, maneless lions, and around forty per cent of Kenya's elephant population.
What you'll see →June to October is the pick, September and October the peak. April is the month to skip.
Pick your month →Mzima Springs, Mudanda Rock, Lugard's Falls, plus official walking safaris, night drives and balloon flights.
See activities →Our own research
We collect the official tariff of every park we cover, convert it, and hold each one to the same standard day. Twenty-nine parks are in the index now, the famous ones included. These three pages come out of that table.
Ngorongoro charges $278 for a standard day and $148 of that is the descent into the crater. The ranking straight down, with the line item behind each number.
See the ranking →One person, one car, no one to split the vehicle fee or the campsite with. Uganda's foreign-vehicle tariff turns the order upside down.
See the self-drive ranking →The highest nightly rates any camp in our network puts in writing, and why the real top of the market names no price at all.
See the rates →Every change to this guide, dated.
