Travel Eye on Bamburi Beach (Kenya)

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Overview:

This Kenyan coastline is exactly as you would imagine it to be. Windswept palms, wooden huts and warm winds. As the season changes, so the direction of the wind moves from light northerlies to stormy southerlies.

But, you can't visit Mombasa with the idea that it will be like a typical coastal resort. From the moment you step out of the arrivals hall at the airport it's easy to feel overwhelmed by the attention you receive from the locals if you're not used to it.

Bamburi Beach is beautiful but is more of a marketplace than somewhere to relax. Watch out for the persistent beach traders. You can't just put down a towel and settle into a good snooze because you will eventually be surrounded by wooden elephants, carved keyrings and fruit carts!

All the trading and haggling is fun for a bit but can become tiring. If quiet sunbathing is more your thing, do what 90% of visitors do for their entire holiday and stay by the pool of your hotel.

Everything is on offer from boat trips and jet-skiing to massage and safaris. The tide goes out quite far, so boat trips and other activities have to be timed to coincide with high tide. The hotels post up tide charts and also run water activities that are better organized but also higher in price than their beach-trade equivalents.

Locality:

Bamburi Beach is a long strip of pale sandy coast, protected by coral reef located on the SE coast, facing the Indian Ocean (300 mls SE of the capital Nairobi). It is 7 mls N of Mombasa, 13 mls NE of Mombasa's Moi international airport.

Entertainment/Facilities/Attractions/Things to do:

Bamburi Beach is most popular among package tourists wanting everything laid on, with plenty of activities and opportunities for day trips. Accommodation is centred around a strip of self-contained, package-tour hotels. Attractions on and around the beach include: numerous water sports arranged by the hotels including water-skiing, scuba diving, snorkelling, glass-bottomed boat trips over the coral reef and sailing. By night there are plenty of bars and flashy discos outside the hotels. Local excursions consist of half day trips to Bombolulu the Cultural Centre for displays of tribal arts and dancing; Bamburi Quarry Nature Park, an old quarry converted to a nature reserve with paths and jogging circuits. Full day: water park at Kenyatta Beach (2 mls); big-game fishing trips (Dec to March).