This magical beach resort is Africa's best — and it's still a secret

Times

03-05-2025

If the greatest natural shows on earth were festivals, then Kenya's great migration would be Glastonbury, a world-famous bucket list event that some say is too commercial. North Norfolk's winter goose invasion would be Download, a festival attracting more dedicated fans. And Kilifi's carmine bee-eater roost would be the secret gathering with the legendary line-up that you only hear about from a friend who's in the business.
Kilifi lies on the Kenyan coast, 35 miles north of Mombasa. The rich kids from here have worked, played and been educated overseas, and they've collected ideas from elsewhere in the same way the rest of us collect fridge magnets.
The kite-surfing scene could be Queensland, the beach club would fit in Ibiza and Salty's on the Creek — an overwater cocktail joint and restaurant accessible only by boat — is pure Jamaica. Out in the plantations, Phil Rowe from the booze start-up RoHo Agave has returned from Mexico to make mezcal from sisal, and I'd put a tenner on the brains behind the 3 Degrees South water sports centre having spent time in Salcombe (3degreessouth.co.ke).
The result is a resort that combines the best of east Africa, including three miles of reef-protected Indian Ocean beach, with concepts scavenged from around the world. And because few, if any, tour operators have discovered it, this magpie's nest remains a local secret.
Not all ideas are imported, though. On the bridge over the fjord-like Kilifi Creek my guide Joff Minns and I pass a 6ft Masai bloke with dreads down his back dressed in a silver crop top and budgie smugglers, and pedalling a child-sized chopper bike pimped out to look like a Boeing 737, complete with wings and engines. 'He's never been anywhere,' Joff says. 'That's all his idea.'
You can smell the magic everywhere in Kilifi but you can actually see it at the back end of the creek. We sail upstream in Joff's dhow, drop anchor at a wooded island and wait for the show to begin.
At sunset the carmine bee-eaters come home to roost but, such is their apparent love for each other, none will sleep until all have returned. First you see three. Then thirty. Then the sky becomes a cyclone of joyful, whirling birds flashing red as they draw shapes in the day's last rays. I see magic carpets, waterfalls, hourglasses and tornadoes. It's the most mesmeric murmuration I've witnessed.
And like the best gigs, there are encores. The flock sinks like a parachute into the mangroves, settles, then spots a straggler. The jet wash from thousands of wings gusts over the dhow as every bird rises to greet the latecomer with another dance before sinking again. And repeat.
The next day I drive north into the Arabuko Sokoke forest to explore a lost city called Gedi. The afzelia trees surrounding the ruins are occupied by hundreds of white-throated monkeys that mob visitors for an entrance fee but won't escort you inside.
My guide here, who goes by Mr T, explains how these lichen-covered walls and root-ruptured floors are all that's left of an 11th-century Swahili metropolis. He points out the mosque, the wells, the plumbed-in bathrooms and the treasure rooms built with secret doors. He shows me fragments of Chinese porcelain, brought by merchants who came to trade for ivory, wood, rhino horns and gold, and he recounts how a 15th-century raid by murderous Somali pirates led to Gedi's collapse.
What remains, murmurs Mr T, with a fearful glance at the canopy, is now guarded by deadly snakes and the ghosts of those massacred. That's why the monkeys stay outside.
• Read our full guide to Kenya
Some 35 million years ago east Africa's coastal forests ran from Sudan in the north to Mozambique in the south. It was part of a hot, wet, tropical woodland that stretched for 4,000 miles, from Kilifi in the east to the mouth of the Gambia River in the west, covering twice the area of today's Amazon rainforest.
Our hominid forebears lived up in those trees on a diet of fruit but, as the climate turned cooler and drier, woodland gave way to hardier grassland. To cross these new savannahs safely, our ancestors learnt to walk upright.
The Arabuko Sokoke is a tiny remnant of the coastal section of that ancient megaforest. 'If what we had then was a city, then what remains now wouldn't even be a whole brick,' says the naturalist Jonathan Karissa. And yet these 160 square miles are one of Unesco's 36 global biodiversity hotspots and second only to the 250,000 square miles of the Guinean forests for birdlife diversity.
I'm hoping to spot the tiny teddy bear-like Sokoke scops owl but Karissa wants to show me another endemic animal: the rare golden-rumped elephant shrew. He hurries into the woods, explaining that the light is failing and that I should have got here earlier, and then, oh my: here's a pair of the chihuahua-sized rodents tiptoeing down the path as though they're expecting me. Karissa is as amazed as I am — it's taken less than a minute to find this species, which evolved 40 million years ago, lives only here and is not even a shrew but a distant relative of the elephant.
We push on to find a crowd of villagers watching a waterhole. Orange rays from the setting sun are stabbing through the ironplums as 56 elephants emerge ghostlike from the treeline to drink. I'm distracted for a moment by a squadron of hornbills heading home to roost and when I look back the elephants have vanished.
Room-only rates in Kilifi range from £32 a night for a room-only double at Salty's Kite Surf Village (saltyskitesurf.com) up to £135 at the Silver Palm Spa and Resort (silverpalmkilifi.co.ke), but a beach house is the better option. I'm in the Beach Side Villa, the smaller property at the Kilifi Beach Villas. It's a fully staffed arabesque palazzo in four acres of tropical gardens behind the sands and sleeps up to 12 in five en suite bedrooms with four-poster Swahili beds. It has a pool, a rooftop yoga pavilion, a bar, a kitchen with private chefs and billionaire decor. If you can find 11 people you like, you can rent it from £2,100pp full board for a week. The adjoining Ocean View Villa— equally well appointed — sleeps 19 in eight bedrooms, and costs from £2,500pp full board for a week.
At 6.25am the sun rises over a beach that's empty but for a spear fisherman standing like a heron in the shallows. The Indian Ocean is tepid, blue and as smooth as oil as I swim the 200 metres out to the reef. Up here only the distant call of the muezzin ripples the stillness. Down below the cast of Finding Nemo is stuck in the rush hour.
Later we head into the plantations in search of a collection of shacks, treehouses, cashew barns, scrap metal and graffiti called the Food Movement, a project set up by a local creative, Warren Wilson. There's a bar in a ficus tree made from an old Land Rover Defender with a wall made of bottles. A restaurant in the old farmhouse serves fish tacos and Swahili fusion dishes made with ingredients bought directly from farmers and fishermen. An old chicken factory houses a fashion business and the sheds are art galleries, ateliers and antique shops.
• From the bush to the beach — my Kenya trip had it all
Across the sisal fields lies Beneath the Baobabs, site of a state-of-the-art recording studio and three-day dance festival of the same name that takes place every new year. And on a platform overhanging a gorge where leopards live the Twisted Fig restaurant serves seared tuna and a fabulous pressed lamb shoulder.
I leave after a two-night stay that feels, in the best possible way, like a week. If you come to Kilifi, perhaps on a post-safari beach trip, try to stay longer. You'll search in vain, though, for a Kilifi fridge magnet.Chris Haslam travelled as a guest of the Kilifi Beach Villa, which has seven nights' full board for 12 from £25,000 (kilifibeachvillas.com). Fly to Mombasa
This article contains affiliate links, which may earn us revenue
By Siobhan Grogan
This grand mansion in the Nairobi suburb of Karen makes for a peaceful stopover before (or after) safari. The five-star hotel has 45 suites, each named after a famous person associated with Kenya. All have exposed beams, touches of leather and mahogany, hand-cut Italian marble bathrooms and large private terraces overlooking the Ngong Hills. There's a small spa, a gym, a sauna, a steam room and a lovely shaded outdoor pool surrounded by gardens. A large patio is perfect for sundowners and the casual bistro serves food all day, including traditional afternoon tea and dinners with a south Asian flavour.Details B&B doubles from £312 (hemingways-collection.com). Fly to Nairobi
Check into this adults-only boutique hotel for a Kenyan beach holiday with bonuses. The hotel is right on Diani Beach, overlooking the Indian Ocean, and so ideal for snorkelling, windsurfing and dolphin rides, while it can also arrange trips to a local village nearby, walks through the Kaya Kinondo Sacred Forest and an elephant-spotting safari in Shimba Hills National Reserve, less than an hour away. The Maji has 15 individually designed rooms that showcase Swahili antiques, original tribal handicrafts and modern African paintings. All have garden or ocean views. There's a restaurant, a library and a small gym while the 118m pool circles the property like a moat.Details Half-board doubles from £514 (the-maji.com). Fly to Mombasa
Opened in early 2025, Basecamp Samburu is a safari lodge on the community-owned Kalama Conservancy with views of Mount Ololokwe in Kenya's northern territory. Five luxury solar-powered safari tents have en suite bathrooms and private terraces with uninterrupted views of the Samburu wilderness. All are built around a communal dining space, with a fire pit for after-dinner drinks. There's also a separate elevated four-poster Starbed with dining area and hot tub, which can be booked to sleep entirely alfresco. As well as twice-daily safari drives, guests can go rhino trekking on foot, stargaze, join an after-dark scorpion safari and visit the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary.Details Full-board doubles from £226 (sarunibasecamp.com). Fly to Nairobi