Nairobi Travel Guide: Everything you need to plan your trip

Want a Nairobi Travel Guide? We went to Kenya in 2025 as Aliasgher was invited for a conference, and that made it the perfect opportunity to travel internationally. We are now paying it back, and here are some details that will help you plan the trip. If you’d like more detail, check out our YouTube video.

Nairobi Travel Guide

Visas

Visa is very simple for Kenya as most African countries don’t require a visa to visit. Of course, always check if this is the case for where you’re flying from and your citizenship. It’s generally a 3 month free visit so make sure that your flight to and from is within that 3-month period. You have to book a return flight as well, and this will need to be shown as proof.

Flights

There are direct flights from Cape Town or Johannesburg, making the flight simple. We flew from Cape Town and took Kenya Airways, which offers the direct flight to Nairobi (the capital of Kenya) and the flights were about R12,000. If you are flying from Johannesburg, we have seen flights from as low as R7000 to Nairobi.

In general, we don’t recommend Kenya Airways as they don’t have good service, with many delays and some horror stories that we have experienced, such as lost bags, etc. However, with the opportunity cost of travel time, we decided to take it and didn’t face an issue this time around. The average total flight time from Cape Town is approximately 7 hours.

Even if you are travelling from outside South Africa, you are most likely to get a good flight in terms of duration, no layovers, and price with KQ because Nairobi is their headquarters.

Hotels vs Airbnbs

Since the conference paid for Aliasgher’s stay at a hotel, we decided to go with Airbnb stays as we loved the recommendations online. We’re also not a fan of hotels in major cities because they’re too businessy.

We stayed in two different suburbs at that time, Kileleshwa and Parklands. We recommend either of these places. Despite tall buildings and construction in both areas, they were both very green and good location-wise. They are accessible to shops, malls, supermarkets and many other amenities. The average cost of the apartments was R1000 per night.

If you’d like to stay at a hotel, we stayed at the Radisson Blu. As expected, it was quite businessy and there was a lot of unnecessary security. It was also very highly priced for what you get. The breakfast buffet was great, though!

How to get around

Travelling is not that easy or comforting in Nairobi. We encountered traffic at all times of the day, regardless of when we left. The matatu is the only public transport option available so we recommend renting a car if possible. We were lucky to have our friend lend us his car during the time we travelled, but if you are renting, the rates are similar to those in South Africa. Otherwise, Uber and Bolt work as well.

Where to eat

We love the food in Kenya. Absolutely, love it. You have various cuisine options similar to South Africa, as we drooled over every meal. Some of our favourite meals were mishkaki, nundu, miyogo crisps, Indian food, masala chips, okay okay we will stop now. There are many recommendations, and we really can’t list them all here, so we’ve done a whole other blog for it. Check it out!

What to do

There is plenty of places to visit in Kenya as well. Many people might think that the only options are safaris, which Nairobi does have, but it also has museums, iconic malls, activities, view points, and accessible to nearby places. We were fortunate to explore Nairobi, and some of our favourite activities are below:

• Nairobi National Park
• Nairobi National Museum
• Museum of Illusions
• Westgate shopping mall
• Village Market
• Mamba Village
• Giraffe Centre
• Kazuri Beads
• Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage
• Karura Forest

We’ve got detailed posts on each of these activities, including booking links. Check them out on our website category ‘Kenya‘.

Outside Nairobi

Of course, you are not restricted to Nairobi when visiting. There are many towns nearby. Mombasa is about 3 hours away, and it is known for its nightlife during the holy month of Ramadan and its pleasant warm coastal weather. The beaches are stunning, and there’s tons of water activities you can do here. We read that the train goes there and it’s a comfortable journey, and then of course you can fly too.

Masai Mara National and Amboseli National Park are also within an 8 hour driving distance, meaning that you have a plethora of options just from the central role of Nairobi. If you’d like something closer, there’s places like Nakuru and Naivasha that will allow you to switch off and enjoy exploring nature too.

Weather

Nairobi’s very pleasant, getting cool during evenings and mornings. We were surprised that there was no AC or heater in our apartments, but we honestly didn’t need either. We do recommend a light jacket for the cold weather during evenings, and if you are planning to go for an early morning safari, when it really drops significantly.

Corruption

Unfortunately, part of our experience was very unpleasant in that we were asked to give a bribe by a police officer. This was something we noticed in Kenya quite a lot, as there were many unethical aspects. For example, when we went to the airport, the person who clinged wrapped our bag quoted us another amount, before charging us another. It’s just something to be aware of, we aren’t complaining about anything that we haven’t seen Kenyans feel tired of as well 🙁

Regardless, we recommend visiting Nairobi because there’s a ton of amazing things to do, wonderful people to meet, and delicious food to eat!

Want more things to do in Nairobi or other travel guides? Follow us @afor_adventures, check out our itineraries, or subscribe to our blog.