Useful Information

Useful Information for Visitors

Where to Stay: Visitors to Laikipia can choose from more than 50 accommodations. Tailored to suit all tastes and pockets, these range from some of Africa’s most luxurious safari lodges and camps, to ranch homesteads and cottages, hotels, small eco-lodges, tented bush camps and campsites. Many of the district’s lodges are community owned.

Conservation fees: These vary from one conservancy to another, usually ranging from US$ 40 to US$ 100 per adult per day. On some conservancies, a fee (of about US$ 5 per day) is levied on self-driven vehicles. The fees support wildlife security and road infrastructure and maintenance, as well as important aspects of community development – including health, education and access to clean water.

Practical Considerations

Timing your visit: Most Laikipia lodges and camps are open year round. In the wettest months (usually April and November), sections of road through parts of some conservancies – those on ‘black cotton’ soils – may be closed temporarily, denying access to certain areas. Major circuits in most conservancies are murram-surfaced, however, and remain passable year round for four-wheel-drive vehicles.

Warm clothing: Laikipia is warm during the day at most times of the year, but temperatures may plummet in the evenings (in July–September especially), when strong cold winds often blow. It is advisable to pack warm clothes, and to carry some warm gear on afternoon game drives, in anticipation of the evening chill. Nights too can be very cold.

Seasons

Rainy Season: The long hot and humid rainy period starts around April and lasts until June, then the short rains come during the warm months of November and December.

Dry Season: January through to March are hot and dry, while July to October are warm and dry.

Communications: The network coverage of mobile telephone service providers is improving all the time. As of now (2011), Telkom Wireless provides the most wide-ranging coverage. The networks of both Safaricom and Zain cover the main towns, but are accessible only sporadically elsewhere in the district.

Route maps: These can be purchased at the entrance gates to most conservancies.

Safety

High levels of security, directed at poachers and other ne’er-do-wells, are in place in conservation areas throughout Laikipia, making the district’s conservancies and wilderness environments perfectly safe for animals and people alike. Individual conservancies cannot be held responsible, however, for reckless or foolhardy behaviour on the part of individual visitors who may court danger by leaving their vehicles or by wandering about on foot, or who may harass, disturb, or otherwise provoke wild animals.

Other Activities

Mount Kenya: Laikipia is the perfect staging post for climbing nearby Mount Kenya, Africa’s second highest mountain (after Kilimanjaro). Ascents of the two highest peaks, Batian and Nelion, 5,199 m (17,058 ft) and 5,188 m (17,022 ft) above sea level respectively, are technical climbs. Many of Laikipia’s camps and lodges offer walking parties the chance to scale Point Lenana, 4,985 m (16,355 ft) above sea level. Timing your climb: January, February and August are the best months in which to climb Mount Kenya. Climbing conditions are least favourable in April–May and November.