While Kenya is first and foremost a safari destination, it also boasts some truly stunning coastlines, and none more so than Diani Beach, which is often ranked among the most beautiful beaches in the world. When we visited Kenya in February of 2021, we spent five days on safari, one at the incredible Giraffe Manor, and three at Diani Beach, where we had little agenda beyond relaxing and diving.
We flew to Diani Beach from Nairobi, which was a short, easy flight on one of Kenya’s many domestic airlines. We had arranged for a taxi to pick us up from the airport and take us to our accommodation, which was a few miles away from the main beach in a small town called Tiwi. We booked accommodation through Airbnb, but this property went above and beyond what most Airbnb’s have to offer! We stayed in a luxury tent on a stunningly gorgeous property with our own private plunge pool on a cliff overlooking the ocean. It was extremely private, with access to a small beach and nearby rock pools. Beyond the amazing property, though, we were well taken care of during our stay by our friendly hosts and a personal chef, who made us delicious meals every day and cleaned our room. It was incredibly luxurious, and a very special place to stay!
We arrived in the early afternoon, and spent our first day settling into our Airbnb and enjoying our personal pool. Our hosts graciously helped us organize a diving trip for the next day, and our chef/butler whipped up a delicious local chicken dish for dinner. We were feeling a little tired by this point in our trip, and it was nice to have an afternoon to just relax and rest.
The next morning, we took a taxi into Diani for a full day of diving. We went out with a dive shop called Diving the Crab, who were great! The dive masters in charge of our dives were very helpful and professional, and the equipment was all top notch.
Unfortunately, Kenya had been experiencing unusual amounts of rain during the time of our visit, which meant the visibility for our dives was extremely poor. We saw a variety of reef fish and starfish, plus a couple of turtles, but the lack of visibility made the dives less than spectacular. There was also a strong current, and I was swimming much harder than I usually do while diving. It was still a nice day out on the water, though, and we saw some dolphins while having a snack at the surface.
After our two dives, we headed back to shore where we spent some time walking along the beach. Diani Beach is absolutely beautiful, but we were harassed pretty relentlessly by locals trying to sell us things. I know they are just trying to make a living, but I felt annoyed at being followed so persistently, and it did make it uncomfortable to just walk along the beach. After a while, we sat down at one of the beach bars for some lunch, then called a taxi to take us back to our Airbnb.
Charles cooked us a fabulous seafood dinner, and we enjoyed watching monkeys and birds in the trees above our tent. Honestly, I probably could have stayed at our Airbnb the entire three days and been happy, it was so nice.
Our final day in Diani, we explored a collection of rock pools right next to where we were staying. One of the staff members at the Airbnb is a naturalist, and for a very small fee, he took us to the rock pools where we could go snorkeling. We saw several pretty starfish and watched crabs scuttle among the rocks. One of the pools was shaped like Africa, which was kind of funny.
We had lunch at a nearby restaurant, then packed up our stuff for the long drive to Mombasa, where we were catching our flight home. It had been a nice three days, but if I’m being honest, I have mixed feelings about my time in Diani Beach. The beach was spectacularly beautiful, but the whole area had a weird atmosphere, in my opinion. As a tourist, it was difficult to explore on our own, and while we never felt unsafe, we never felt quite comfortable either. The dynamics between the tourists, the employees in the tourism industry, and the other locals felt a little off, although this could have just been our experience. Maybe some day I’ll be able to go back and give Diani Beach a second chance to impress me.
Leave a Reply