Kajiado area guide: Kitengela, Ngong and the road to Amboseli
Wind turbines along the Ngong Hills ridge above the Rift Valley floor
The Maasai county that wraps Nairobi's southern edge holds rooms from KSh2,500 in Kitengela to KSh60,000 in Amboseli, and choosing badly costs you two hours of commuting a day.
One county, four completely different places to sleep
Kajiado County starts at Nairobi's southern boundary and runs 200km down to the Tanzanian border at Namanga, taking in Ngong and Kiserian on the Rift escarpment, Ongata Rongai and Kitengela on the plains, Kajiado town and Isinya on the Namanga road, the soda flats of Magadi, and Amboseli National Park at its far southern end. Treating it as one destination is the mistake visitors make. A night in Kitengela and a night in an Amboseli camp are separated by 240km, four hours of driving and a factor of ten in price.
For a traveller, the county divides into four useful bases. Ngong and Kiserian, on the ridge, for views, hiking and cool nights. Kitengela and Rongai, on the plains, for cheap rooms with fast access to Nairobi National Park and the airport. Magadi, for a strange lunar day trip. And Amboseli, for the elephants and Kilimanjaro, which is a proper safari destination and not a Nairobi suburb at all. Pick one deliberately; do not assume proximity on a map means proximity in traffic.
Ngong and Kiserian: the ridge
Ngong town sits at about 2,000m on the eastern flank of the Ngong Hills, twenty-five kilometres from central Nairobi and a world colder. The hills themselves are a Kenya Forest Service reserve with a ridge walk of roughly 14km over seven knuckles, wind turbines turning along the spine, and views west into the Rift and east across Nairobi. Entry is a few hundred shillings and armed rangers are available as escorts, which is worth taking; the route has had robbery incidents in the past and going with a guide is standard practice.
Accommodation on the ridge is thin but improving: cottages and small country hotels around Ngong, Kiserian and along the Kona Baridi road charge KSh5,000-12,000 for a double with a fireplace and a view, and there are simple town hotels at KSh2,000-4,000. Kona Baridi, the cold corner on the Kiserian-Magadi road, is the classic viewpoint. The goat-roast clubs on the escarpment above Kiserian, where Nairobi families drive up on Sundays for whole roasted goat with a Rift Valley panorama, charge KSh1,000-1,600 a kilo and are the main reason anyone comes on a weekend.
Kitengela and Rongai: cheap beds on the plains
Kitengela lies 30km southeast of central Nairobi on the Namanga road, just past Athi River, and is a fast-growing commuter town of apartment blocks, malls and warehouses. Rooms are cheap and plentiful: KSh2,500-6,000 for a clean double, KSh6,000-10,000 for something with a pool and a restaurant. Its practical advantage is the airport, which is 20-30 minutes away without touching central Nairobi, and the Athi-Kapiti plains, where zebra, wildebeest and giraffe from Nairobi National Park still disperse across unfenced land.
The catch is commuting. Getting from Kitengela into Nairobi means Mombasa Road, and the morning run from 6.30 to 9.30 can take ninety minutes for 30km. If your days are in the city, this base will cost you three hours daily. Ongata Rongai, west of Kitengela on the Magadi road, is similar in price and closer to Karen and the Ngong Hills, with the same traffic problem on Langata Road. Both work brilliantly for a pre-flight night or a safari staging post, and badly for a city-focused holiday.
What is within walking distance in each
In Kitengela and Rongai, quite a lot: malls with supermarkets and ATMs, nyama choma joints, chemists, and endless small kitchens doing lunch for KSh200-350. These are dense, busy towns with pavements of variable quality and heavy boda boda traffic; walking by day is normal and after dark most people take a boda for KSh50-150. The Maasai Ostrich Farm at Kitengela and the glassblowing workshop on the Magadi road near Nairobi National Park's southern edge are both short drives rather than walks.
In Ngong, the town centre with its market, matatu stage and shops is walkable, and the forest station gate for the hills is a short boda ride from the centre. Once you are on the ridge, you are committed to the walk: the full traverse takes four to five hours with no water, no shade on the open sections and a wind that does not stop. In Magadi and Kajiado town there is essentially nothing to walk to beyond a duka and a hotel dining room, and the heat on the Magadi floor makes walking a poor idea anyway.
Magadi, Olorgesailie and the strange southern day
The Magadi road runs southwest from Nairobi through Kiserian, drops off the escarpment and crosses 100km of increasingly hot, thorny country to Lake Magadi, a soda lake that turns pink and white with mineral crust and holds flamingos, hot springs at the southern end where you can sit in water at bath temperature, and a soda ash plant that has been working the lake for a century. The drive takes two and a half hours each way and the temperature difference between Kiserian at 1,900m and Magadi at 600m is often 15C. Carry water and fuel.
Olorgesailie prehistoric site sits about 65km down the same road, a Rift Valley basin where hand axes lie in situ in the sediment where they were made hundreds of thousands of years ago. It has a small museum, bandas for overnight stays at modest cost, and an entry fee of a few hundred to a couple of thousand shillings depending on residency. Doing Olorgesailie and Magadi in one day from Nairobi is a full twelve hours and worth it once. Sleeping in the bandas turns it into something better, if you are comfortable with basic.
Amboseli: the far end of the county
Amboseli National Park lies 240km south of Nairobi in Kajiado's southern reaches, reached in four to five hours via the Namanga road or via Emali off the Mombasa highway, with the last stretch of either route unsealed and rough. It is the elephant park: large, relaxed herds against Kilimanjaro when the mountain is out, which is mostly at dawn and briefly at dusk in the drier months of June to October and January to February. Non-resident entry runs in the region of KSh9,000-13,000 per adult per day depending on season.
Sleeping options split between lodges inside the park and camps in the surrounding Maasai group ranches, at KSh25,000-70,000 for two on full board, with the community-run camps often cheaper and offering walks and village visits the park itself cannot. Budget travellers use the campsites and bandas near the gates at KSh1,500-4,000 per person. Two nights is the minimum that justifies the drive; a one-night Amboseli trip is eight hours in a vehicle for one game drive, and every operator who sells it knows that.
Which Kajiado base to book
Book Kitengela or Rongai at KSh2,500-6,000 if you want the cheapest secure bed within reach of Jomo Kenyatta International, or if you are staging a southbound safari and want to be past the Nairobi traffic before dawn. Book Ngong or Kiserian at KSh5,000-12,000 if you want cool air, a fireplace, the hills walk and Sunday goat with a Rift view. Both undercut Nairobi proper by 40-60 per cent for the same standard of room.
Book Amboseli at KSh25,000-70,000 if elephants and Kilimanjaro are on your list and you have three days to give it. Do not try to run a Nairobi sightseeing itinerary out of Kajiado; the commute will eat the trip. And do not book Kajiado town or Isinya unless business takes you there, since they are livestock-market towns on a truck road with hotels priced for traders at KSh1,500-3,500 and nothing for a visitor to do after dark.
Before you book
What people ask before booking Nairobi.
Yes, with sensible precautions. Take a Kenya Forest Service ranger escort, available at the gate for a fee, walk in a group, start early and carry water; there is no shade or shelter on the ridge. The full seven-hill traverse is around 14km and four to five hours, with a strong wind most of the way.
No. The Mombasa Road commute from Kitengela into the city runs ninety minutes each way in peak, so you lose three hours a day. It is excellent for a pre-flight night, at 20-30 minutes from the airport, and for staging a drive south, but stay in the city if your days are in the city.
Four to five hours for 240km, via Namanga or Emali, with rough unsealed sections near the park. Give it three days and two nights minimum. Non-resident park entry runs roughly KSh9,000-13,000 per adult per day, and camps in the surrounding group ranches often cost less than lodges inside the gates.
Yes, but it is a twelve-hour day: 100km each way on the Magadi road, two and a half hours in each direction, plus the hot springs and Olorgesailie on the return. Leave by 6am, carry water and fill the tank in Kiserian, because fuel and food options south of there are minimal.
