Kenya Top Destinations

Crowned by Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak, the Amboseli National Parks is one of Kenya's most popular parks. The name "Amboseli" comes from a Maasai word meaning "salty dust", and it is one of the best places in Africa to view large herds of elephants up close.

Background Information

Protected Area Type: National Park     When to go: June - October​
Park Size:390.26 sq. Km

Crowned by Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak, the Amboseli National Parks is one of Kenya's most popular parks. The name "Amboseli" comes from a Maasai word meaning "salty dust", and it is one of the best places in Africa to view large herds of elephants up close.

Amboseli National Park is located in Loitoktok District, Rift Valley Province of Kenya.

The park is 39,206 hectares (392 km2; 151 sq. mi) in size at the core of an 8,000 square kilometres (3,100 sq. mi) ecosystem that spreads across the Kenya-Tanzania border.

The park is famous for being the best place in Africa to get close to free-ranging elephants among other wildlife species. Other attraction of the park includes opportunities to meet the Maasai people and also offers spectacular views of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest free-standing mountain in the world.

In Amboseli’s case it is big skies and far horizons combined with swampy springs and dry and dusty earth trampled by hundreds of animals.

Amboseli has an endless underground water supply filtered through thousands of feet of volcanic rock from Kilimanjaro’s ice cap, which funnel into two clear water springs in the heart of the park. 
However, the climatic pendulum can swing from drought to flood, and in the early 1990’s ceaseless rain changed Amboseli into a swamp. A few years later the rains failed and the grass-covered plains turned to dust.

How to get there

  • By Road: The main road into the park is from Nairobi via Namanga (240 km) on the Nairobi - Arusha Road, through Meshanani Gate. The other road is from Nairobi via Emali (228 km) on the Nairobi - Mombasa Road. Access from Mombasa is mainly through Tsavo West National Park via Kimana (Olkelunyiet) Gate.
  • By Air: Airstrips: The park has a single airstrip for light aircrafts at Empusel gate. Other airstrips exist at Kilimanjaro Buffalo Lodge and Namanga town

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