Kenya travel FAQ

The Kenyan shilling, written KES or KSh. Think of it as about 130 shillings to $1, close to the Central Bank of Kenya's rate in September 2026, and check the current rate before you go. Safaris, lodges and park fees are usually priced in dollars; shops, taxis, town restaurants and markets price in shillings.

Yes, for tips, many lodges and some park and activity fees. Shops, taxis and markets price in shillings, so carry some local currency too. If your trip continues to Zanzibar or Tanzania, bring extra dollars, because many hotels there price in them.

Bills issued after 2009, clean and undamaged, with no tears, ink marks or heavy creases; older or damaged bills are refused by banks and most lodges. $50 and $100 bills get a better exchange rate, but bring some smaller clean bills for tips. Order them from your bank a week or two before you fly.

Visa and Mastercard work at hotels, safari lodges, larger restaurants, supermarkets and malls, mostly in Nairobi and on the coast. American Express is rarely accepted, and small shops and markets take cash or M-Pesa. When a card machine or ATM offers to charge you in dollars, say no and pay in shillings: your own bank's rate is almost always better.

M-Pesa is Safaricom's mobile money service, and in Kenya it works more like a national payment system than an app. If you are 18 or over, register a Safaricom SIM in your own name with your passport at a Safaricom shop, including the counter in the JKIA arrivals hall, and the staff switch on M-Pesa. Load it with cash at any agent, and spend it down before you fly home, because it does not work abroad.

For a week-long package safari, $300 to $500 per person in clean bills covers most travelers, mainly for tips. Bring one Visa or Mastercard plus a backup card kept in a different bag. On a longer or independent trip, use ATMs and M-Pesa as you go rather than carrying more cash.

About $40 to $50 per vehicle per day for your driver-guide on a private safari, or $10 to $20 per person per day on a shared one. Add $5 to $15 per person per night to the camp staff box, and 10 percent in restaurants if there is no service charge. A couple on a seven-day mid-range safari should plan $300 to $450 in total, in small, clean U.S. dollars.

Most visitors have trouble-free trips. The everyday risks are petty theft in cities, the roads and wild animals, and good habits deal with most of them: ride-hailing after dark, daylight drives with an experienced driver, and your guide's rules in the parks. We plan every trip with vetted guides, a 24-hour line and evacuation cover. Before you book, check the current U.S. State Department advisory for Kenya and confirm your travel insurance covers your route.

On a guided safari, the risks in the Mara are the ones our Booking Conditions name for any safari: wild animals, long drives on rough roads and light aircraft. Your guide's instructions on wildlife are non-negotiable: stay in the vehicle except at designated points, and after dark let the camp's askari, the night guard, walk you to your tent. The road is the biggest real risk, so fly in from Wilson Airport if you can.

Do not walk after dark, even short distances: take Uber, Bolt or Little instead. Order the ride from inside, confirm the plate and the driver's name, sit in the back and share your trip with someone. Use hotel safes, and keep your phone out of sight on the street.

On a guided trip you travel as every guest does: met at the airport, driven by a vetted guide, and walked to your tent after dark by the camp's askari. In Nairobi and Mombasa, use ride-hailing apps rather than walking after dark, and in coast towns cover shoulders and knees away from the beach, as women and men both do. A shared safari or one of our group departures is the most affordable way to travel alone, and it comes with company.

Enroll in STEP, the State Department's free Smart Traveler Enrollment Program, before you fly. It sends you the U.S. Embassy's alerts for Kenya by email and lets the embassy find you in an emergency. Keep the embassy's emergency number in your phone along with our 24-hour line.

Plan three nights per park. For a first safari, seven days covers two parks, typically Amboseli or Lake Naivasha and the Mara, with about five days of game viewing once travel is counted; ten days lets you add a beach. Each change of park takes about half a day by road or a morning by air.

Shared safaris run from about $150 to $300 per person per day and private mid-range trips from about $300 to $600. For families and groups of four or more, private costs close to the same per person, so it almost always wins. For a couple it adds about $100 to $150 each per day, which is worth it if pace, photography or flexibility matter to you.

Nairobi to the Mara is about 45 minutes by air from Wilson Airport, or five to six hours by road. Flying saves about half a day each way and costs roughly $700 to $850 more per person than a drive-in trip, so it suits short trips. On a week or more, many travelers prefer to drive and keep the same vehicle and guide all trip.

Usually a seven-seat Land Cruiser or a minivan with a pop-up roof; Land Cruisers handle rough tracks and the wet season better, so ask which one a quote includes. With four people in a seven-seater, everyone has a window. At fly-in camps you go out in the camp's own vehicle, often shared with other guests, and conservancy camps cap their vehicles at six guests.

You have a good chance on a trip that pairs two parks, though no one can promise every animal. The Maasai Mara has the best lions and leopards, but its black rhinos are few and rarely seen, so add a rhino stronghold such as Ol Pejeta, Lewa or Lake Nakuru. Ol Pejeta, Lewa and Meru National Park have all five in one place.

The herds are usually in the Maasai Mara from late July to October, with the most river crossings in August and September. Timing shifts with the rains each year, and no one can guarantee a crossing on a given day. Book 9 to 12 months ahead, and allow at least three nights with two full days near the river.

Maasai-owned land next to the national reserve, leased by its landowners to a limited number of camps, with wildlife moving freely between the two. Conservancies limit vehicles at sightings and offer walks and night drives, which the reserve does not. Many travelers sleep in a conservancy and drive into the reserve on river-crossing days.

At the time of writing, non-resident adults pay $100 a day in the Maasai Mara from January to June and $200 from July to December, $90 in Amboseli and Lake Nakuru, and $80 in Nairobi National Park and Tsavo. Children pay about half in KWS parks, and young children enter the Mara free. Fees change, and on our itineraries park and conservancy fees are included and listed in your quote.

Yes. Self-drive is allowed in KWS parks and the Maasai Mara with a park ticket and a vehicle fee, using your U.S. license plus an International Driving Permit. Drive on the left, stay on the tracks, and finish every drive before dark, around 6:30 to 7pm. A driver-guide costs from about $30 to $50 a day on top of the vehicle and is usually the better deal.

Usually, but patchy. Hotels and most lodges have Wi-Fi in common areas, and some remote camps keep it to the lounge on purpose. Video calls work in cities and larger lodges; in the bush, expect messaging rather than streaming.

Yes, if your phone is unlocked. Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom have counters in the JKIA arrivals hall, where a tourist bundle of several gigabytes for 30 days costs about KSh 1,000 to 2,000 and you register with your passport. You can also set up an eSIM before you leave, and a Safaricom line lets you use M-Pesa.

Yes, and it is how Kenya communicates: guides, drivers and camps all use it. Our team uses it for trip updates too. It works wherever you have data or Wi-Fi, which a local SIM or eSIM makes easy.

Kenya runs on East Africa Time, UTC+3, with no daylight saving. That puts it 8 hours ahead of U.S. Eastern time in the American winter and 7 hours ahead in summer, so 7pm in Nairobi is 11am or noon in New York. The West Coast is 11 hours behind Kenya in winter and 10 in summer.

Book a scheduled trip online and pay in full or on a monthly plan; for a custom trip, we send an itemized quote with the payment schedule. Your booking is confirmed when we receive your first payment and email you a confirmation. Payments are processed by Stripe, and prices are in U.S. dollars per person.

There is no deposit. You pay in full when you book, or split the price into equal monthly payments, the first charged when you book and the rest charged automatically on the schedule shown at checkout. All payments finish before departure, and there is no charge for using the monthly plan.

Cancel 91 days or more before departure and we refund everything you have paid, minus a $250 per person administration fee and any supplier costs that cannot be refunded. From 61 to 90 days before departure, 50% of the total price is charged, and at 60 days or fewer, 100%. On a monthly plan your payments stop when you cancel, and we never ask for more than you have paid.

Kenya Experience LLC is a U.S. company, a collaboration of two U.S. companies: GCK Travel, which plans travel for groups, schools, churches and institutions, and Roundtrip Safaris, which runs our trips on the ground in Kenya. We do not print license numbers on the site because they renew every year; ask for our partners' current license and registration details with your quote and check them with the regulator yourself. The founders' names and photos are on our About page.

Reviews from travelers we hosted appear on our reviews page as they come in after each trip. We check every review against our bookings and publish the good and the bad. If you have traveled with us, you can write one there.