Aberdare National Park

Aberdare National Park protects a range of highlands west of Mount Kenya, about 2.5-3 hours from Nairobi. It is very different from Kenya's savannah parks: cool, often misty, covered in thick forest and bamboo, with high moorland and many waterfalls.

The park is best known for its tree hotels - lodges built on stilts above floodlit waterholes, where you watch elephant, buffalo and other animals come to drink through the night. Game drives here are more about atmosphere than numbers, because the dense forest limits visibility.

Aberdare suits travellers adding a highland stop between Nairobi and Mount Kenya, Nanyuki or Samburu, and anyone curious about a different side of Kenya.

The lower slopes, known as the Salient, are dense montane forest. Higher up are bamboo belts and open moorland at over 3,000m, with streams dropping into deep valleys. Karura and Chania Falls are among the best-known waterfalls.

A tree-hotel night is the classic Aberdare experience: an early dinner, then hours by the window or on a viewing deck as animals arrive in the dark. Some lodges offer a buzzer or knock to wake you for special sightings.

The dry periods, roughly January to February and June to September, make forest roads easier. Rain and mist can occur at any time at this altitude.

Around 2.5-3 hours by road from Nairobi, usually via Nyeri.

Tree hotels overlooking waterholes, a few lodges and tented camps, and simple self-catering cabins.