The Loita Hills.
No lodges. No roads worth the name. No other guests. Four days on foot with Maasai who have never worked anywhere else.
Four nights on foot, as an extension to a Mara safari and never instead of one. No lodges, no vehicles, no other guests — twelve to eighteen kilometres a day with Maasai guides.
- Give it
- 4 nights
- Best months
- Jun–Oct, Jan–Feb
- From
- $690 pp/night
- Come for
- Walking, Maasai forest
Not a wildlife destination — a walking one
The Loita Hills rise east of the Mara to around 2,300 metres, holding a block of indigenous forest the Maasai call Entim e Naimina Enkiyio — the Forest of the Lost Child — which has never been logged, gazetted or farmed. It is community land, held by the Loita Maasai, and it is not a park.
Game is present and thin: elephant move through the forest, buffalo are common and genuinely dangerous on foot, and leopard, bushbuck and giant forest hog occur. You will not see much of it, and that is not why anybody comes. Birding is excellent, with highland forest species absent from the plains below.
What the Loita offers is walking through inhabited landscape with the people who inhabit it. There are no lodges, no vehicle tracks in most of it, and no other tourists. Guests who arrive wanting a game drive are in the wrong place; guests who arrive wanting four days on foot describe it as the best thing they have done in Africa.
~330
km² of unlogged forest
2,300 m
Highest ridges
0
Lodges
4–6
Days on foot, typically
Fly-camps, moved every day
There is nowhere to stay in the Loita Hills, which is the whole point. Guests sleep in a mobile fly-camp — walk-in tents, bedrolls, a bucket shower rigged from a tree, and a cook — which is struck each morning and pitched again wherever the day’s walking ends.
Donkeys carry the camp. The staff are Loita Maasai from the settlements you walk between, and the arrangement is negotiated through the community rather than a concession holder, which means your money reaches the people whose land it is.
Most guests approach it as a three- to five-night extension from the Mara conservancies, driving or flying to the trailhead. It can also be walked as a longer traverse from the Nguruman escarpment, which takes ten days and is genuinely serious.
Month by month
| Months | Weather | Walking conditions | Crowds | Our view |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan – Feb | Warm, dry, clear | Excellent; firm ground | None | The best window |
| Mar – May | Long rains; heavy in the forest | Poor; leeches, mud, low cloud | None | We do not operate |
| Jun – Aug | Cool, dry, sometimes misty | Excellent; cold at night | None | Our main season |
| Sep – Oct | Warm, dry, dusty on the ridges | Very good | None | Excellent |
| Nov | Short rains, brief | Fair; slippery on the descents | None | Possible, and green |
| Dec | Clearing, warm | Very good | None | Good, and available |
Access
Driven three hours from the Mara conservancies, or flown to Ol Kiombo and driven two, or five hours from Nairobi via Narok. There is no airstrip in the hills themselves. The last hour is rough in any month, and impassable in the long rains.
What you pay to enter
There is no park fee — this is community land. A negotiated community walking fee of USD 60 per person per day is paid directly to the Loita council, along with guide, donkey handler and camp staff wages. All are included in the journey price and itemised on your invoice.
Before you go
You must be able to walk twelve to eighteen kilometres a day over hilly ground at 2,000–2,300 metres, for consecutive days. Nights are cold — bring a fleece and a warm bag liner. Minimum age twelve, and honestly fourteen. Buffalo are the real hazard and your guides carry a spear rather than a rifle, which is worth understanding before you commit.
How it is run
A mobile fly-camp
2–6 guests · from $690 pp/night
Walk-in tents, bedrolls, bucket showers, a cook and a long table under a tree. Struck and re-pitched daily by donkey.
Loita Maasai guides
Two per party
Moran from the settlements you walk between, who have guided nowhere else and read this forest as home ground. Spears rather than rifles.
A pre-walk night on the Mara
Conservancy camp
Almost every Loita walk starts with two or three nights in the Mara conservancies, which is where the vehicles, the game viewing and the hot showers are.
Four days, and what they are actually like
You walk from around six-thirty until eleven, rest through the heat wherever there is shade, and walk again from three until five, covering twelve to eighteen kilometres. The camp appears ahead of you, carried by donkeys on a different route. It is not a difficult pace and it is a relentless one.
The forest itself is the draw: unlogged podocarpus and juniper, salt springs where cattle and elephant come to drink, and clearings where Maasai families have lived for as long as anyone has records. You pass through settlements, are invited into houses, and drink a great deal of tea.
The cultural half is not staged. There is no dance arranged for your arrival and no market set up on your route. Your guides are walking through country in which they have relatives, and the difference between that and a village visit is immediately obvious.
Guests should know: there is no vehicle backup for most of it, evacuation would be a long day, and the toilet is a spade. We insist on insurance covering remote evacuation and we brief this in writing before anyone confirms.
Four nights, as we would build it
To the trailhead
Driven from the Mara conservancies, three hours, the last one rough. A first camp pitched on a ridge with the plains behind you and forest ahead.
Into the forest
Fourteen kilometres north into the Forest of the Lost Child — podocarpus, colobus, and a salt spring where elephant and cattle drink from the same water.
The high ridges
Up onto open ground at 2,300 metres, walking between settlements, with the Nguruman escarpment and Lake Natron visible on a clear afternoon.
A day without walking
Kept for a settlement your guides have relatives in — no schedule, a great deal of tea, and the afternoon spent doing very little.
Out, and back to the Mara
A last morning descending to the vehicles, and back to a conservancy camp for a hot shower, which nobody pretends is not the highlight.
What pairs with the Loita Hills
Select a region
Masai Mara
Amboseli
Samburu
Laikipia
Ol Pejeta
Lewa
Aberdare
Naivasha
Nakuru
Nairobi
Meru
Tsavo
Watamu
Diani
Lamu
The Masai Mara, three hours by road. Not optional in practice — every Loita walk we sell begins or ends with two or three conservancy nights, which is where the game viewing is.
Lake Natron, over the escarpment. Visible from the high ridges, and reachable as a separate flying leg into Tanzania for the flamingo breeding grounds and Ol Doinyo Lengai.
The Nguruman escarpment, for guests wanting the ten-day traverse rather than a four-night extension. Genuinely serious, and we have run it four times.
Amboseli, 90 minutes by air from the Mara strips, if the plan is to see plenty of animals before or after all this walking.
On The Loita Hills
Is this a safari?
No, and we are careful about that. There are no game drives, very little visible wildlife and no lodges. It is a walking journey through inhabited Maasai forest, and it works as an extension to a Mara safari rather than instead of one.
How fit must we be?
Genuinely fit: twelve to eighteen kilometres a day over hills at 2,000–2,300 metres, on consecutive days, carrying only water. If you walk regularly at home you will be fine. If you do not, this will be the hardest thing in your journey.
Is it safe with spears rather than rifles?
Loita guides are not licensed to carry firearms on community land, and they walk this country daily. Buffalo are the real risk and the guides’ practice is avoidance rather than confrontation. We are candid about this in writing and some guests decide against it, which is a reasonable response.
Is the cultural side authentic?
As much as anything can be when money is changing hands. Nothing is staged for arrival, your guides have family in the settlements you pass, and the walking fee goes to the Loita council rather than a middleman. You will also be asked for things, and told no is fine.
What is the minimum age?
Twelve formally, and we would advise fourteen. There is no vehicle backup for most of the route and no way to shorten a day once it has begun.