5 Best Hiking Trails In Kenya For Forest Lovers 2025

5 Best Hiking Trails In Kenya For Forest Lovers 2025

Many go hiking for exercise purposes, but hiking offers more than that. Hiking is the best way to rejuvenate, relieve stress, bond with nature, and build a team. In Kenya, hiking trails range from gentle flat roads in the savannah to rock climbing and trekking in indigenous forests, heath, moorland, and the slippery bamboo forest.

Kenya has many hiking trails with beautiful landscape scenery and patterns of hills, lakes, rivers, mountains, and valleys. It is also rich in wildlife like the big five, grazers like zebras and impalas, and monkeys.

5 Best Trails In Kenya

1. Ngare Ndare Forest (Best Hiking Trails In Kenya)

Ngare Ndare is an indigenous forest located in Timau, Meru County. It is an extension of the Mount Kenya Forest. This is a forest rich with indigenous trees and untampered with nature. The forest is very healthy, with evidence of mosses, fungi, and lichen on the indigenous trees. It has the best nature trail in Kenya.

Waterfalls(Best Hiking Trails In Kenya)

Ngare Ndare Forest has about 6 waterfalls. The pools have clean water, and swimming and diving are allowed. For you to swim in these pools, you should be an expert in swimming because the pools are deep and cold. The water flowing from the waterfalls has a lot of pressure.

The Jewel waterfall of Ngare Ndare forest is the Azure Waterfall, famously called the Ngare Ndare Waterfall. The pool under this great waterfall is blue. You may think color has been added to it but it is naturally blue even when the clouds are dark. 

The blue color in this pool is due to copper sulfate minerals in the water. During the heavy rains, the pool turns brown due to the dirty water flowing into it from the forest, but when the water settles down, it turns back to blue.

The canopy walk(Best Hiking Trails In Kenya)

This is a 420-meter-long bridge, which is 10 meters above the ground. It is shaky; therefore, people with acrophobia, which is a condition where an individual experiences an intense fear of heights, may not prefer it. I have a fear of heights, but the canopy walk is manageable.

The canopy is a safe place to watch the animals walking in the canopy forest below. On a lucky day, you can see the elephants. At the end of the canopy walk, you can watch the elephants and other animals drink water from the pool.

Key sights in Ngare Ndare Forest

The key sights in this forest are the beautiful and healthy forest, with indigenous trees, wild animals, and birds. People also look up to the canopy and walk the waterfalls and the blue pools to swim in. There is a rock climbing activity outside the conservancy on a rocky outcrop.

There are wild animals like lions, African buffalos, leopards, black rhinos, African elephants, bushbucks, waterbucks, bushpigs, spotted hyenas, olive baboons, and colobus monkeys. You can see the animals early in the morning or at dusk, especially the dangerous animals like leopards and lions.

Related: Top Things to do at Ngare Ndare Forest

2. Kakamega Forest(Best Hiking Trails In Kenya)

In the heart of the western region is a beautiful stretch of the only remaining tropical rainforest in Kenya, Kakamega Forest. It is situated in Kakamega and Vihiga, Kenya. Being a rainforest, it is rich in flora, fauna, and beautiful attractions like waterfalls.

Kakamega Forest is a natural habitat for wild animals, birds, reptiles, butterflies, and rodents. It is rich in plant species, including rare and threatened species. It is home to over 300 bird species and 400 butterfly species. The forest is also rich in medicinal-value plants and over 100-year-old trees.

Fauna

Large animals like elephants are rare in the forest. Butterflies are the main tourist attraction in the forest; some species include Acrea, Jumonia, Limura, and Charaxes. There are also insects like Goliathus and Mantidae myriapods.

If you are a bird lover, this will be paradise. Various bird species include Great Blue Turaco, Grey-chested Kakamega, and sunbirds. The rare bird species are African grey parrots, and the threatened species is the Chapin’s flycatcher.

Snakes in the forest are black and white cobras, Gaboon vipers, and black and white mambas. Other small animals are chameleons, geckos, and agama.

Flora

There are 350 different plant species, 160 of which are endemic, like fern, orchid, and camphor basil, used by the locals for medicinal purposes. In Isecheno there is the largest and oldest tree, famously known as Mama Mutere by the locals. It is 40 meters high and has lived 250 years. The bark of the tree is used as a traditional medicine against stomach ailments.

Kakamega Forest is the only tropical rainforest in Kenya but is under threat and needs protection and care. The Kenya Wildlife Service and the Kenya Forest Service help to protect and administer the forest. They have offered a portion of the forest for residents to cultivate and graze, but with boundaries. Kakamega Forest is the most populated forest. Residents live within the forest and benefit from the forest to feed their families and survive.

The boundaries are always altered, which puts the forest and the wild animals at risk. In 2010, Kenya Wildlife Service submitted a proposal for UNESCO to include Kakamega Forest on the World Heritage List.

Nurseries for native plants like trees and shrubs have been put in place so that the forest’s thick vegetation cover can be preserved and maintained. There are projects to help preserve the indigenous butterflies, which are the main tourist attraction, and also an introduction to bee farming.

Around the forest, there are Bandas, which offer camping services and traditional dishes. There are people within the forest reserve who present Luhya culture to the people. You can learn the Luhya culture, rites, and norms.

3.  Aberdare National park(Best Hiking Trails In Kenya)

It is located in Nyandarua and Nyeri counties, Kenya. It is governed by the Kenya Wildlife Service. Aberdare National Park is rich in waterfalls like the Karuru Waterfall, which is one of the highest waterfalls in Kenya, and the Gura Waterfall, which are adjacent to each other. The waterfalls are separated by a scenic landscape covered in thick green vegetation.

The vegetation cover in this park is dense and thick, with green forest cover. Most of the trees are indigenous trees, making the park an ideal environment for wild animals and birds. Some of the forest inside the Aberdare National Park is the thick Ragia Forest, a hiking destination you should try.

The park hosts famous hiking destinations in Kenya like the Elephant Hills, Mount Satima, Mount Kinangop, and the Seven Ponds. These are also the most challenging hiking destinations. The landscapes in the park are beautiful, and the place receives rain throughout the year. It is cold; come well prepared with warm clothes.

Wildlife in Aberdare National Park

Some of the wildlife are waterbuck, bushbuck, duikers, elephants, leopards, lions, olive baboons, elands, black and white colobus monkeys, mountain reedbuck, side-stripped jackals, east African wild dogs, and giant forest hogs.

The park is home to over 250 birds: sparrowhawk, African fish eagle, sunbirds, cisticola, Jackson’s spurfowl, African goshawk, and plover, which are endangered species.

Aberdare National Park is a rich and scenic destination. You cannot explore it in just a day; it requires several days to explore the area and enjoy its scenic views.

4.  Karura Forest(Best Hiking Trails In Kenya)

This is a short trail for nature lovers located in the northern part of Nairobi, Kenya. It is protected and managed by the Kenya Forest Services and the Friends of Karura Community Forest Association. It is the biggest forest in an urban town. The forest has five entrances; the main entrance is across the Belgian Embassy at Limuru Road and Gate C along Kiambu Road, a few kilometers from the DCI headquarters.

This is the best getaway within Nairobi City to bond with your friends and family and have fun. They have a 9-kilometer hiking trail, which is ideal for everyone of all ages. No fitness is required to hike here. The forest receives a lot of visitors during holidays and weekends. This is the best place for the company’s team-building activities.

They offer areas for jogging, dog walking, hiking, cycling, and education trips and research. The place is always busy in the morning; this is the time people come to have their morning runs and walk their dogs.

5.  Mt Kenya Forest Reserve(Best Hiking Trails In Kenya)

Mount Kenya is the second-highest mountain in Africa, standing at 5199 meters above sea level. It is one of the most impressive landscapes in East Africa with its rugged glacier-clad summits and forested middle slopes. It has an afro-alpine flora, which gives it an outstanding ecology. At its foothills are the scenic views of the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy and the Ngare Ndare Forest Reserve. It is the best and the most challenging hiking trail in Kenya.

There is a beautiful ecological transition zone between the mountain ecosystem and the semi-arid savanna grassland. The vegetation varies with altitude and rainfall, and the property supports rich alpine and subalpine flora.

In the lower forest and the bamboo zone, mammal species include elephants, black rhinoceros, suni, giant forest hog, tree hyrax, white-tailed mongoose, black-fronted duiker, and leopards. At the moorland, there are Mount Kenya mouse shrews, common duiker, and hyrax.

Mount Kenya is a very scenic mountain. Its peaks are a view by themselves. Parts of the peaks seem to be above the clouds, which gives a fascinating view. This is one of the destinations that you have to visit to believe.

It is managed by the Kenya Wildlife Services and Kenya Forest Service.

Conclusion

Kenya offers the best hiking trails in Kenya to explore and start your hiking hobby. There are a lot of sceneries in Kenya that you can’t believe exists unless you visit. Want to explore contact us now!