Tsavo West National Park

A once in a lifetime experience

Our trip to Kenya and vistit to Tsavo West National Park was our first (and so far only) safari. It was one of our most enjoyable and memorable vacations so far. Although we did not spot any cats, we basically saw every other animal: giraffes, elephants, zebras, hippos, owls, etc.

We slept in a (fully equipped) tent , which made the experience complete. In the night you could literally hear the animals passing by. Amazing.

After a couple of days we stayed in a resort at the beach. That was nice as well, but we all hoped the safari would have last a little longer. The days just seemed to flew by!

Please have a look a my pictures to get an impression of Kenya and Tsavo West National Park: https://www.flickr.com/photos/beukhof/sets/72157639847428163

Red bushy Tsavo

Along with the eastern portion the Tsavo National Park is around 20,000 square kilometers, dwarfing the more popular Masai Mara which is 1,510 square kilometers. Although Tsavo is a large park its vegetation may make game spotting a lot more difficult, and thus the popularity of Masai Mara. But Tsavo with its red soil, blue skies and black lava flows offers a unique beauty of its own. Even the animals are coloured red because of the soil! The Mzima spring was a first for me and it was intriguing to see water just appearing from the ground, and quite a bit of it! The water was so pure that we could drink straight from the spring!

If you have some luck on your side Tsavo can be a great place. It's sheer size means there is enough wildlife in the park, but you may have to be patient and spend more time here. Unlike animals, birds are a lot easier to spot and if you are into birding you will certainly not be disappointed.

One more interesting feature of the park is the "Shetani" lava flow. It was surreal to see the landscape suddenly change to dark black. In fact you can see the border between the red soil and the black soil from past volcanic eruptions clearly in certain spots.

Tsavo West - the mountainous rustic gem of the Kenyan safari parks.

Tsavo West was one of three national parks we visited while in Kenya, along with Amboseli and Tsavo East. Each of these parks has its own special characteristics and charms. Of the three, Tsavo West is certainly the least visited, which helps to give it a more secluded and natural feel. The relative lack of tourists means that even when impressive groups of animals are spotted, only a few safari vehicles will converge, and so are less likely to spook them away. Additional plusses for Tsavo West are that the terrain provides a beautiful backdrop as this park is the most mountainous of the three, and that there was the opportunity to see animals that we were not able to spot elsewhere. For example, Tsavo West was the only park where we observed leopards, hippos (at the Mzima Springs pools within the park), and several kinds of monkeys. Mzima Springs in particular was an exceptional treat since it was one of the few opportunities on safari to leave the jeep while in a park, though in exchange, the guides needed to be armed just in case a hippo or other large animal decided it did not like our presence. Luckily, incidents almost never occur, so the result is just that one can get closer to the natural environment and have a slightly elevated sense of adventure while doing it. Tsavo West also contains a black rhino preserve, though we were unable to see any rhinos while there. Not being able to see a rhino was perhaps the only major downside with our visit, though I am sure other visitors don’t have this kind of bad luck. Others potential criticisms of the park are that because it is so remote, the lodging services are a little rougher and that because of the terrain, there are no locations to get expansive photos of hundreds of animals of different species together as far as the eye can see. We personally found the lodging in the park to be pleasantly rustic, and thought the change of background scenery provided a good compliment to the other parks on the trip. Assuming you can fit it in your itinerary, a visit to Tsavo West is certainly recommended along with the other fine parks in the Kenyan park system.

Prettier scenery, better purity of air, wider variety of wildlife. Smaller areas to cover.

Long drives before you could see any animals..
Maybe in August there is more to see.

The nature was beautiful but very bushy which made the animals harder to spot.

Less animals than in earlier years, but still very nice. Always a special place due to the red soil which colors the animals.

As above

It is huge area with few tourists, but also animal are quite invisible. Nice to be alone with sun and nature and enjoy peace and red landscape.

Tsavo West is enormous. In December, the animals are quite scattered, so it seemed like we had to do a lot of driving to see the animals.
The scenery is excellent.