Nairobi

Nairobi's headline experience is wildlife on the doorstep. Nairobi National Park, fenced on the city side but open to the plains to the south, is the only national park inside a capital — an early-morning game drive here can deliver lions, black and white rhino, giraffes, zebras, buffalo and abundant birdlife, all with the city skyline on the horizon, a surreal and convenient introduction to the African safari. On the park's edge, the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust runs the world's most famous elephant orphanage, rescuing and hand-raising orphaned calves; visitors can watch the babies being bottle-fed and mud-bathed during the one-hour public visit each midday (book ahead). A short distance away in Langata, the Giraffe Centre lets you feed and nuzzle endangered Rothschild's giraffes from a raised wooden platform — a delight for families and the origin of the famous Giraffe Manor next door. Together these make a full, unforgettable day without leaving the city.

South-west of the centre, the green, spacious suburb of Karen takes its name from the Danish author Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen), whose memoir Out of Africa immortalised her years on a coffee farm here. The Karen Blixen Museum preserves her early 20th-century farmhouse, furnishings and gardens at the foot of the Ngong Hills — a tranquil window onto the era and the landscape she described. Nearby, the Kazuri bead workshop (employing local women) and a string of garden restaurants, the Karen and Langata craft shops, and the start of the Ngong Hills ridge walks make the area an easy, leafy half-day. The Ngong Hills themselves — the row of knuckled green summits on the city's horizon — offer a breezy hike with views over the Rift Valley on one side and the city on the other.

Central Nairobi rewards exploration beyond the wildlife. The Nairobi National Museum is the best primer on the country — galleries on Kenya's extraordinary prehistory and early-human fossils (the Leakey discoveries), its peoples, birds and art — with a Snake Park and botanical gardens alongside. The modern skyline is pinned by the cylindrical, saucer-topped Kenyatta International Convention Centre, whose rooftop gives a sweeping city view. The rotating Maasai Markets — held on different days in different parts of the city — are the place to buy beadwork, soapstone carvings, kikoi cloth and Maasai jewellery (haggle hard and good-naturedly). For culture, Bomas of Kenya stages traditional dance and homestead displays of the country's communities. And Nairobi's food and nightlife are a draw in themselves: famous nyama choma (grilled meat) halls, a booming café and craft-beer scene, and live Afro-fusion music that runs late.

For most travellers Nairobi is the springboard for Kenya's world-famous wild places, and the logistics run through the city. From Wilson Airport (light aircraft) and Jomo Kenyatta International (NBO), short flights reach the Maasai Mara — the country's signature reserve, where the Great Migration of wildebeest crosses the Mara River from roughly July to October — and Amboseli, framed by the snows of Mount Kilimanjaro across the Tanzanian border. Road safaris head down into the Great Rift Valley to the flamingo lakes of Nakuru and Naivasha, north to the elephants of Samburu and the foothills of Mount Kenya, or south-east toward the vast Tsavo parks on the way to the Indian Ocean coast at Mombasa and Diani. Nairobi's safari operators, lodges and tour companies make it the natural place to begin or end a Kenyan trip, and a day or two in the capital pairs naturally with the bush.