Tsavo East and Tsavo West

Tsavo East and Tsavo West together cover an area larger than some countries, and their scale is the point: this is not the manicured game-viewing of the smaller reserves but a huge, dry, thorny wilderness where you can drive for an hour without seeing another vehicle. The soil is a deep ochre red, and the elephants that dust-bathe in it come out the same colour, which is how Tsavo's famous red elephants got their name. The eastern park is flatter and drier, cut by the Galana river and edged by the Yatta Plateau, one of the longest lava flows in the world; the western is greener and more broken, with volcanic hills, the Shetani lava field, and Mzima Springs, where clear water wells up through porous rock and an underwater viewing chamber lets you look through it at hippos and fish. Lion, buffalo, giraffe, oryx and enormous herds of elephant range through both.

What you actually see

• The red elephants - herds dusted ochre by Tsavo's red soil.
• Mzima Springs - clear spring pools with an underwater viewing chamber, in Tsavo West.
• The Yatta Plateau and Lugard Falls - the long lava flow and the sculpted river rapids.
• The scale - vast, empty bush country with very few other vehicles.

When to go

The dry seasons, roughly June to October and January to February, concentrate animals at water and thin the bush, which matters a great deal in Tsavo's dense scrub. The parks lie conveniently between Nairobi and the coast, which makes them an easy add-on to a beach trip.

Honest expectations

Tsavo is big and thick, so wildlife is more scattered and harder to spot than in the Mara or Amboseli, and first-time safari-goers hoping for constant sightings can be disappointed; its rewards are space, solitude and elephants. Distances between gates and lodges are long over rough tracks. The two parks charge separately. Poaching hit Tsavo hard in the past, and while numbers have recovered, animals here are warier than in the busier reserves.

Nearby

Amboseli lies to the west below Kilimanjaro; the coast and Mombasa are a few hours east.