Karen Blixen Museum

Karen Blixen ran a coffee farm here from 1917 until the business failed and she returned to Denmark in 1931, and the book she wrote afterwards, Out of Africa, made the house and the view towards the Ngong Hills famous. The building is a bungalow of stone and timber built in 1912, and it holds furniture, some original to her and some from the 1985 film, along with photographs, her books and farm equipment. Guided tours run through the rooms and out into the garden, where the coffee drying ground and the view remain. The suburb around it, now called Karen after her, has grown into an affluent district. The house is honest about the arc of the story: a failed farm, a broken marriage, and a book written in Denmark about a place its author could not return to.

What you actually see

• The 1912 bungalow - the farmhouse rooms with period and film furnishings.
• Farm equipment - coffee machinery and tools in the grounds.
• The Ngong view - the hills from the garden, as in the book.
• Photographs and papers - material on Blixen and the farm years.

When to go

Year-round; the museum opens daily with guided tours included in the ticket. Mornings are quieter than afternoons. It combines naturally with the Giraffe Centre and the Sheldrick nursery on the same side of Nairobi.

Honest expectations

The house is small and the tour brief, around forty minutes. Some furnishings are film props rather than originals, which disappoints purists. Photography inside is restricted. Nairobi traffic to Karen can take an hour or more from the centre.

Nearby

The Giraffe Centre is minutes away; the Ngong Hills rise to the west.