Nairobi National Park, our first safari destination in Africa

Published: October 5, 2023

A visit to Nairobi National Park was our first safari experience in Africa, and we loved every moment! Nairobi National Park is located right next to the busy capital city of Kenya, and during a game drive in the park it’s possible to see plenty of wild animals, at times with the Nairobi skyline or the Nairobi-Mombasa train track in the background. In this post we share some basic information about the park, describe a half-day tour to the park and of course share a lot of pictures of the habitats of this almost-urban-but-still-very-natural park.

Nairobi National Park in a nutshell

Nairobi National Park was opened in 1946 as the first national park in Kenya, and it covers an area of 117 square kilometers. Despite the close proximity to the city, the wildlife population of the park is very diverse and it’s also one of Kenya’s most successful rhinoceros sanctuaries. The flora of the park is mainly dry grass plains, with some acacia thickets in places and a slightly more wooded areas along the small rivers that cross the park. There are also some ponds and small lakes, home to hippos and crocodiles for example. The park is so close to the city, that you can actually observe the wildlife with the skyline of Nairobi in the background. Also, the elevated Nairobi – Mombasa railroad runs through the park.

Half-day tour in Nairobi National Park

Visiting Nairobi National park is super easy, since it’s so close to the city. There are several tour operators organizing half-day (either early morning of afternoon) and full-day tours. We did a half-day (roughly four hours) morning safari as a group safari. We booked the tour through Viator, and it was carried out by a safari company called Kenya Bush Expeditions Tours.

The first animal that we saw during the half-day tour in the park was a Masai giraffe, and during the drive we saw several of them, including young giraffes. Giraffes are gorgeous animals, and they have the kindest eyes!

Right after seeing the first giraffes, we spotted the first lion of the day, a huge male that was simply just walking along a dirt road. It didn’t really pay much attention to the tour cars, I suppose they are very used to them.

Even if there are quite a lot of lions in Nairobi National Park, it’s not always easy to see them. We were lucky to see a lot of them during the safari, both walking around and sleeping, including two lion cubs! So cute and at the same time so majestic big cats!

Nairobi National Park is home to black rhinos, a species of rhinoceros native to eastern and southern Africa, classified as critically endangered. In this park, there are roughly 100 black rhinos and thus it’s a great place for seeing a black rhinoceros in its natural habitat. There are also the more common white rhinos in the park, and we spotted several of them too.

Other huge mammals living in Nairobi National Park include African buffalo and hippopotamus. We managed to see three buffaloes (partly hiding behind bushes) and several hippos, both in water and on land. Hippos may look gentle, but can be very dangerous, and despite the round shape, heavy body and short legs, they are able to run 30 km/h!

During the tour we saw dozens of zebras roaming around and refreshing themselves in a pond of water. Did you know that the beautiful black and white pattern in the coats of zebras is unique to each individual? In addition to zebras, there are various species of antelopes in the park, including blue wildebeest, Thomson’s gazelle, eland, impala, hartebeest, waterbuck and many more.

Nairobi National Park is also home to Nile crocodile, a predator that eats different species of fish, reptiles, birds and mammals. It was kind of horrifying to watch how spoonbill birds were walking right past the big jaws of a crocodile, but obviously it wasn’t hungry but just resting.

Regarding birds, there are hundreds of different species in the park. The one that most easily catches the eye is the gigantic common ostrich, the largest living bird in the world. This flightless bird can run as fast as 70 km/h in short bursts, and the males can weight up to 130 kg! We also saw dozens of Marabou storks, a very interesting predator bird. The smaller colorful birds in these pics are a lilac-breasted roller, the national bird of Kenya, and a Superb starling.

And last but not least, a cute black-backed jackal! In addition to this one in the pic, we also saw some small, fluffy jackal cubs crossing the road! And talking about predators and their cubs, we also managed to see a cheetah with a cub, but only from afar, so unfortunately there is no picture to share of them.

Overall a safari in Nairobi National Park was a great experience, and warmly recommended especially as a first safari experience. Compared to the most popular national parks in Kenya, like Masai Mara and Amboseli for example, this park is of course small and the landscape is nothing spectacular, but the amount of wildlife certainly is impressive, and it’s possible to see a lot even during a very short tour! Regarding the famous big five, it’s possible to see four out of five in Nairobi National Park – there are a lot of rhinos, there are buffaloes and it’s common to see lions too. It should be also possible, even if not common, to see a leopard, but there are no elephants in this park. To see them, and overall more wildlife, our next destination was Amboseli National Park – safari diary from Amboseli will follow!