Samburu National Park

Go north, and Kenya changes species — the dry-country 'Special Five' you won't see on the southern plains.

Getting there

~1hr flight from Nairobi, or a full day's drive

Best for

The Special Five, dry-country game, few crowds

The land

Semi-arid scrub along the Ewaso Ng'iro river

Honest note

Hot and dry; the game gathers at the river

What it is

Go north, and Kenya changes species.

Samburu is the dry country — red earth, doum palms and thorn scrub along the Ewaso Ng'iro, the river that holds the whole place together. The light is harder, the crowds thinner, and the cast is different: this is the one reserve built around animals you simply won't see on the southern plains.

A reticulated giraffe against red northern scrub and doum palms.

The reason to come

The Samburu Special Five

Five dry-adapted species are the reason serious wildlife travellers come north.

Gerenuk

The 'giraffe-necked' antelope that stands on its hind legs to browse — found almost nowhere else.

Grévy's zebra

Bigger, narrower-striped and rarer than the common zebra; this is one of its last strongholds.

Reticulated giraffe

The sharp-edged, map-patterned giraffe of the north — the most striking of them all.

Beisa oryx

A desert antelope with rapier horns, at home in the heat.

Somali ostrich

Blue-legged and northern, distinct from the common ostrich of the south.

A Samburu note

The reserve is small and the river is everything — a patient morning along the Ewaso Ng'iro usually beats a long loop into the dry scrub.

The lifeline

The river is the whole story

In a landscape this dry, everything bends toward the Ewaso Ng'iro. Elephants come down to drink and dig for water in the sand; leopard work the riverine trees; big cats and crocodiles wait where the prey must come. Game-viewing in Samburu is, in the end, about reading one river well.

Elephants drinking at the Ewaso Ng'iro river, doum palms behind.

When to come — honestly

The river pulls the game in the dry months

July – October

Best

Dry season — Game packs in along the river and visibility is at its best — the prime window.

December – February

Good

Hot and dry — Strong river sightings again between the rains, with few vehicles.

March–May (and the short rains) green the scrub and scatter the game away from the river.

A different Kenya

The north, and the Samburu who hold it

Samburu sits in the lands of the Samburu people, close cousins of the Maasai, and their culture is woven through any honest visit — not staged, but present.

It is hot, arid and remote, and the game is sparser than the Mara. That is the trade: in exchange you get rarity, space and a north most safaris never reach.

We've left out the reserve-boundary detail. What matters to a visit is the river, the season and the Special Five.

Beyond the obvious