Postcards from Mombasa and Diani Beach

Published: December 4, 2023

beach holiday | budget travel | city guides

Kenya is best known for its wonderful wildlife safari destinations, such as Masai Mara and Amboseli, but there is lot more to see. Kenya has a long coastline by the Indian Ocean, full of beautiful beaches. We visited perhaps the most iconic destinations on the Kenyan coast, Mombasa and Diani Beach, from Nairobi.

Mombasa is a historic and multicultural port city

Mombasa is often referred as a beach destination, and there are a lot of beaches around it, but the Mombasa itself is quite urban. In fact it’s the second largest city in Kenya and one of the major ports of the whole Africa. Before Nairobi, Mombasa was also the capital of British East Africa, or the East African Protectorate. Due to its strategic location, Mombasa once was an important hub of trade, and it has been under the rule of several empires. The colorful history is still clearly visible in this bustling coastal town, especially in the Old Town, that is the most fascinating part of Mombasa.

One of the most famous landmarks of old Mombasa is the Fort Jesus fortress, built by the Portuguese in the late 16th century. The Portuguese Vasco da Gama, who landed in the city in 1498, is said to have been the first European to visit Mombasa, and soon after him a whole group of Portuguese conquerors arrived, and the city was under the Portuguese’s control several times.

Very close to the Fort Jesus is the old port of Mombasa, which for more than a thousand years was one of the most important trading places in the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. The picture below shows the view of the old harbor area and the Burhani mosque. We were told by a “guide” that joined us during our walking tour, that in theory it’s possible to get to Zanzibar on that big boat, but getting a ticket is not quite simple, since it’s not an official passenger route or ship.

The alleyways of old Mombasa are lined with old, partly dilapidated buildings with decorative balconies. The building on the postcard below, Ali’s Curio Market, was built in the late 1800s and has served at least as a police station, bar, and store.

Landmark buildings of Mombasa include “The White House”, a late 1800s building that was leased to the Church Missionary Society as a “ladies’ house”, i.e. housing for unmarried missionaries. The building later housed Mombasa’s first US consulate.

White beaches and palm trees in Diani Beach

Located only about thirty kilometers south from Mombasa, Diani Beach is one of the major beach holiday destinations of Kenia. Diani is famous for beatuiful, white beaches, and it’s obviously a busy destination during the high season. There are several fancy resorts built along the coastline, but also simple guesthouses and low-key beach restaurants.

We are not fans of busy tourist destinations, and thus were a bit worried if Diani Beach would be “ruined”, but at least in September it was quite quiet and peaceful, and we got to walk on the beaches almost alone. In our opinion, Diani Beach was at its best during the morning hours, when the tide is low and you can walk in the shallow water or along the wide, white beaches, admiring the turquoise sea and palm trees.

The tides are strong in Diani, which means that at high tide the beach looks quite different. The sea water almost reaches the terraces of beach bars, and walking along the beach gets hard or even impossible.

Regarding accommodations around Diani Beach, there are a lot of options for every budget. We chose Furaha Cottage*, a guesthouse-type of place that we found on booking.com. We rented a small apartment in the courtyard of a larger “mansion”, a few hundred meters from the beach. The apartment itself was very nice, although the shower water was salty and the kitchen area was quite simple. There was a refreshing swimming pool, and we could constantly spot monkeys in the trees.

Coming from Nairobi, at the elevation of around 1800 meters, the round-the-clock heat of Mombasa felt amazing. However, the weather was almost too hot for jogging – in the picture below, Toni is cooling down after a run in the pool, not a bad setting for having a morning coffee!

Regarding eating and drinking, there are a lot of restaurants and bars to choose from in Diani. Even the modest beach bars had surprisingly good food, and tasty cocktails are sold everywhere. It was a pleasure to sip cocktails by the sea, watching the colors of the setting sun.

Train from Nairobi to Mombasa and local transport to Diani Beach

What is the best way to travel to Mombasa? Most of the tourists visiting the coast of Kenya arrive to Mombasa by plane, but the train connection from Mombasa is also a great option! In the old travel guides, this train route is mentioned as a very slow, thrilling ride that lasts almost forever, but after the track renovation a few years ago, the travel comfort has taken a huge leap. The trains are comfortable and clean, and the duration of the ride is less than six hours. Oh and the ticket price in the second class was only 1000 shillings, which is around six euros.

The best part of the train journey is the opportunity to spot wild animals, as the trail track runs between the Tsavo West and Tsavo East National Parks. On the north side of the track, we managed to spot a lot of elephants, one of them even very close to the track. In addition to elephants, we also saw a lot of giraffes, zebras and antelopes.

In both Nairobi and Mombasa, the SGR train terminal is outside the city center, but easily accessible by Uber and also by local transport. We took a mini-van (matatu) from the station to Mombasa, and all the way to the dock of Likoni ferry. Mombasa city center is located on an island, and to get to beach destinations in the south, such as Diani Beach, you have to take a ferry to Likoni, from where you can then continue your journey by matatu to Ukunda. From Ukunda we continued to our accommodation in Diani Beach by tuk-tuk (a three-wheeled motorbike taxi), that is the most convenient way to get around in Diani.

Lastly, a mandatory cat photo from Mombasa! There are a lot of stray cats on the streets of Mombasa, you can spot them pretty much everywhere. Luckily most of the cats seemed to in reasonably good condition, which means that people are feeding them. This cutie took a nap under a chair in a restaurant.