Horseback Safaris in Kenya

By: Gyöngyi Molnár Posted: 16/12/2020

This time, we travel to Kenia, the "King of African Safaris", to discover its iconic wildlife on horseback.

A horse riding holiday in Kenya is synonymous with excitement. Adventure travel fans will love the riding programs that this country has to offer. These journeys take you beyond the beaten tracks, so packed with tourists who prefer the air conditioning of their buses to the natural heat of the place they’re visiting.

Some holiday options are absolutely luxurious. Although most tours are intended for experienced riders, some can be suitable for the less skilled.

Ride in these vast expanses surrounded by national parks such as Masai Mara or Amboseli National Park!

Kenya’s national parks on horseback

Masai Mara is probably the most famous national reserve in Kenya and it is named after its people, the Masai tribe, and its river, the Mara. It’s located in the south-eastern part of the country, an extension of the Serengeti in Tanzania. Safari Unlimited is an interesting option we recommend here.

Amboseli National Park is inside an ecosystem that spreads across the border between Kenya and Tanzania. It has wild large-sized animals and incredible views of Mount Kilimanjaro. Another horseback tour operator in Kenya, Offbeat Safaris, offers a tour around this splendid park, a chance to see its flora and fauna close up.

Safari Unlimited

They’re located in a privileged area, near Masai Mara National Reserve.

They are two generations with forty five years of experience offering their guests an intense experience with wildlife, scenery and the native people in this region.

Horseback riding vacations with them are simply unforgettable, where you can appreciate its scenic surroundings of incomparable beauty.

Its safaris are incredible and its professional team, including guides, chefs, logistics, grooms, waiters, tent stewards and porters, and all its experienced and highly skilled safari staff, help guests that visit them with much dedication. All their efforts together make it happen.

And they are not new to this, most have been with them for over a decade and some are second generation employees.

Their smiles and warm spirits will make you feel instantly at home, in a truly Kenyan atmosphere.

Their riding program includes incredible tours and trails, operated in trails in the most game-rich wilderness locations on the continent, in some of the largest unfenced expanses in Africa.

When you are so far from civilization like here, the sense of space and freedom is overwhelming.

These areas offer great diversity in wildlife species, birdlife and scenery, and will be your natural setting each day you spend with them.

This wild corner of Africa is also home to the Masai and Samburu people, who roam the plains with their herds of livestock nearby, as you ride your horse in this pristine paradise.

Where are you going to ride specifically? As an example, we will now describe two of their rides.

Maasai Mara

The beauty of the greater Mara Conservancies has come to represent the epitome of East Africa. The landscape is one of rolling savannah and acacia woodland, intersected by dark green veins of riverine forests on the banks of the Mara and Olare Orok rivers, the most representative of this incredible place.

This wilderness is an extension of the Serengeti (Tanzania) ecosystem and is considered to be Kenya´s best wildlife sanctuary, where animals can still be seen in vast numbers.

As you ride, you can watch carnivores, antelopes, primates and rodents, among other mammals.

Something unique that you can only observe here is the annual migration of up to one million wildebeest. It is considered to be one of the greatest wildlife spectacles in the world.

Needless to say, the flora, fauna and birdlife in all their rides are phenomenal.

The Mara is also home to the colourful and handsome Maasai people, an ethnic group that keeps their ancestral way of life and roams with their herds of livestock, as their ancestors did hundreds of years ago. They are synonymous with the region.

Laikipia

Laikipia is a vast expanse of wild country in the central highlands of Kenya. It stretches from the snow-capped peaks of Mount Kenya in the east, across the equator to the Great Rift Valley in the west.

The landscape is physically diverse with open grasslands, basalt hills, escarpments, rivers and dense forests. It is widely accredited as Kenya’s premier safari destination.

Its trails are the combination of abundant wildlife and exceptional scenic beauty providing the basis for a unique horse riding experience.

Wildlife is free to roam between the surrounding conservancies, ranches and community lands into Kenya’s northern rangelands. These are some highlights that you will discover on horseback along this safari.

You can participate in the activities proposed by the local communities if you pay them a visit. High levels of community involvement and participation allow visitors privileged access to the ethnically diverse cultures of the Mukogodo Maasai, Samburu, Pokot and other peoples. An extra that you will surely enjoy in this tour.

There are many more aspects to take into consideration when choosing an equestrian tourism option like this – their programs, their rides, other riders’ experiences. You can find all that information if you visit their web site: https://safarisunlimited.com

Offbeat Safari

They are located near Amboseli National Park and their riding tours take you directly there.

Offbeat Safaris was established in 1990, beginning with mobile (star) horseback safaris – they start at the hotel and return to it daily.

Over time, they further expanded the collection to include traditional safari camps and lodges in Kenya's prime game viewing areas. Multi-day tours where riders travel from one place to another, always on horseback.

The founder of Offbeat Safari

Tristan Voorspuy, owner and founder of the company

A total of six years in the army including a two year stint as a ceremonial mounted cavalry officer inspired a wanderlust and return to Africa.

After leaving the army in 1981 he drove a motorbike from London to Cape Town for nine months, looking for work opportunities in Africa.

Having heard of mounted safaris pioneered by Tony Church in Kenya, he applied for a job and spent six years guiding with Tony before beginning Offbeat Safaris in 1990.

Tristan led mounted and other safaris professionally for 32 years in East Africa and ridden in Botswana, South Africa, Ethiopia, Malawi, Namibia, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

He held a Kenya gold level certificate of the Kenya Professional Safari Guides Association and is an honorary warden of the Kenya Wildlife Service.

His Safaris have become well known for offering exceptionally high standards of guiding, service, horses and accommodation, whilst not compromising on the true nature of being on safari.

Experiencing this raw wilderness with so many comforts is what makes their safaris so special.

They offer several different rides, but we will now focus on the following two options to give you a general idea: Amboseli Ride and Laikipia Ride.

Amboseli Ride - “Riding under the shadow of Kilimanjaro”

Everything you imagine riding in Africa to be. This ride epitomizes the trails, aromas, scenery, and wildlife of Kenya... with the stunning backdrop of Mt Kilimanjaro.

In this ride you will stay 8 nights in Amboseli National Park, riding 6 hours per day.

This ride begins close to the border town of Namanga, and crosses through Amboseli National Park en route to the Chyulu Hills away to the east, with Africa’s highest mountain, the snow-capped Kilimanjaro, as a constant backdrop to your horseback adventures around here.

Accommodation is in tents, but they are not the traditional ones for expeditionary adventures. Offbeat Mara maintains its private homely feel even in the middle of Kenya’s incredible wilderness.

The heart of the camp is the main 'mess' tent with its bar, dining area, sitting room, fireplace and forest deck.

All the accommodation tents are en suite with flush loos and traditional hot safari showers. Each tent has its own veranda and is carefully positioned to offer wonderful views as well as privacy.

Laikipia Ride

Pioneering the northern frontier. Laikipia is a stunningly unique horse riding destination in that we can ride across the entire plateau on private land. This means that you are unlikely to encounter any other tourists and you get an extremely exclusive experience.

Throw in excellent wildlife and dramatic landscapes that will be with you on your horseback trip and this makes for an unforgettable riding safari.

The private ranches where you ride are the same places that will accommodate you every night, with no other tourists in sight and with the idiosyncrasy of the place making you feel at home.

Laikipia is a unique wildlife area and contains an enormous diversity of wildlife from the Big Five downward.

It is famous as the last reserve of the Jacksons Hartebeest and is home of several rare species such as the Reticulated Giraffe, Beisa Oryx, Grevy's Zebra, Gerenuk and Somali Ostrich amongst others.

In recent years the various landowners have tended away from exclusive cattle ranching to embrace more tolerance of game and even large predators such as lion and hyena are more abundant now than they would have been 25 years ago.

Riding across this area, you will frequently see wild animals, big and small, and it’s simply stimulating for a rider in search of adventures to come across with elephants, giraffes, hippos and buffalo, so close that you can almost touch them.

There is more about the rides and horseback safari activities of Offbeat Safari, on their web site: https://www.offbeatsafaris.com/

/ Photos from: https://safarisunlimited.com y https://www.offbeatsafaris.com /

Are you also passionate about the idea of travelling the world on horseback?

Argentina is a country with a long-standing tradition of horses. Exploring the country on horseback is something unique – a highly recommended experience. In our eBook "Discover Argentina, the Land of the Gaucho, on Horseback" you will find our options to enjoy Argentina on horseback.

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