Welcome to the wilderness. Tsavo West is one of Kenya’s larger national parks (9065 sq km), covering a huge variety of landscapes from swamps, natural springs and rocky peaks to extinct volcanic cones, rolling plains and sharp outcrops dusted with greenery. Wildlife is here in abundance, too. Put all of these things together, along with its dramatic scenery, fine lodges and sense of space and this is one of Kenya’s most rewarding parks.
This is a park with a whiff of legend about it, first for its famous man-eating lions in the late 19th century and then for its devastating levels of poaching in the 1980s. Despite the latter, there’s still plenty of wildlife here. To see the park's predators, elephants and other species, however, you’ll have to work harder and be much more patient than in Amboseli or the Masai Mara to see them all; the foliage is generally denser and higher here.
The northern half of Tsavo West is the most developed, with a number of excellent lodges, as well as several places where you can get out of your vehicle and walk. The landscape is also striking and is largely comprised of volcanic hills and sweeping expanses of savannah. The southern part of the park, on the far side of the dirt road between Voi and Taveta on the Tanzanian border, is rarely visited.
