Kenya's network of national parks and game reserves is one of the finest in Africa, encompassing habitats from alpine moorland to open savannah to tropical coast. The parks protect an extraordinary diversity of wildlife, and several are synonymous with the best wildlife viewing in the world.
The Masai Mara National Reserve in the southwest is Kenya's most famous, a vast grassland ecosystem that flows into the Serengeti across the Tanzanian border. The annual wildebeest migration, when hundreds of thousands of animals cross the Mara River between July and October, is one of the great wildlife spectacles on the planet. The Mara is dense with big cats — lions, cheetahs, and leopards are all reliably spotted here.
Amboseli National Park offers a very different experience: savannah and swamp at the foot of Kilimanjaro, with large herds of elephants and the possibility of photographing big mammals against a snow-capped backdrop. Tsavo — the country's largest park — is vast and wild, known for its red-dusted elephants and the dark history of the man-eating lions that terrorised railway workers in 1898. Mount Kenya National Park protects the upper reaches of Africa's second-highest mountain.
Hell's Gate National Park near Naivasha is unusual in that visitors may walk or cycle through it unescorted — vertiginous gorges and hot springs make for an adventurous day trip from Nairobi. Lake Nakuru National Park is famous for flamingos and is also one of the better places to see black and white rhinos.
