The safari, then the spice coast, then granite and still water.
Kenya's reserves are reached from Nairobi; Zanzibar lies off the Tanzanian coast to the south, and the Seychelles further out in the Indian Ocean. The order matters: the early mornings first, the beaches last.
01 — Kenya
Nairobi
The safari capital: a national park at the city's edge and the Mara a flight away.
Nairobi is East Africa's hub, a highland city of gardens, markets and traffic with a national park inside its boundary, where giraffe and rhino graze against the skyline. It is the starting point for Kenya's safari circuit — the Masai Mara, Amboseli under Kilimanjaro, the lakes of the Rift Valley — and for the coast at Mombasa and Diani.
Nairobi National Park
The Masai Mara
Amboseli
Karen and the giraffes
The dry season, June to October. The long dry season: cool, clear mornings, grass grazed short and game easy to see, with the migration in the Mara. The peak.
02 — Tanzania
Zanzibar
Stone Town's carved doors, spice farms inland and dhows on a turquoise sea.
Zanzibar is the island off Tanzania where the Swahili coast, Arabia and India met over centuries of trade. Stone Town, its old capital, is a warren of coral-stone houses, carved doors and rooftop terraces; beyond it are spice farms, mangrove creeks and a coast of white beaches where the tide goes out for a kilometre and the dhows sail at sunset.
Stone Town
The beaches of the north
The east coast and the reef
A spice farm
The dry season, June to October. Cool, dry and breezy: the main season for the beaches, with clear water and the kitesurfing wind on the east coast.
03
The Seychelles
Granite boulders, palm forests and beaches of a kind found nowhere else.
The Seychelles are a scatter of granite islands in the Indian Ocean north of Madagascar, older than most islands and shaped differently: pink boulders on white sand, forested peaks, and a palm that grows nowhere else. Mahé, Praslin and La Digue are the three most visitors move between.
Anse Source d'Argent
Anse Lazio and Praslin
The Vallée de Mai
Mahé's beaches and Victoria
The shoulder months, April to May, October to November. The calm months between the trade winds: warm, still seas, clear water for snorkelling and diving. The pick of the year.
