Giraffe Center, Place to Visit in Nairobi

Nairobi offers ample of option for exploring wildlife. Once someone landed in Nairobi may find there are various places around the city that offers the opportunity to see the various animal. Visitors get ample opportunity to get cosy with their favourite animal. Let’s start our tour with one of the best place in Nairobi that situates outskirt of Nairobi in the Karen suburbs. This is home to the animal with extremely elongated neck the Giraffe. Giraffe canter is home to endangered Rothschild Giraffe. We are going to take a half-day tour to giraffe centre. This is the place one can get super close to giraffe and can also get a chance to hand feed them the experience cannot be offered by other place or zoo.

The center is in Karen 30 minutes drive from Nairobi Central Business District (CBD). One can choose any of the below options as per their convenience.

• There are various tour operators provide their service for the Giraffe center tour. One can choose any of them and plan to visit the place. The tour can be combined with the Elephant orphanage and Karen Blixen Museum. The tour operators are quite reasonable you can have a private tour or join with other groups.
• Hire a car and self-drive to reach there.
• One of the most convenient and preferable ways is to get an uber ride and get there.

The giraffe center is open for the public from 9 AM to 5 PM every day (Mon-Sun). One can plan their visit early morning between 9 AM to 10 AM else late afternoon to avoid the rush on weekends and public holidays. One needs to have a valid ID card to produce while asked at the ticket counter so does not forget to carry this.

The entry fees for the center are as below.

Non-Resident Adults: $15

Resident Children: $5

Resident Adults: KSH 400

Resident Children: KSH 200

School Groups: free if booked one week in advance

Free for Children below 3yrs of Age

They do not accept Cash here. The payment can be done by a VISA debit/credit card or by mpesa only.

There is no guide required as their staffs are very supportive and knowledgeable enough to give you details free of cost.

Get kissed by the tallest living terrestrial animal. Are you excited about the idea? Just go for it, try to get a kiss from one of the giraffes from here.

Get really up close to the giraffe here. One gets a chance to hand-feed the giraffe the experience is not available at other places. They provide everyone with a packet of giraffe candy at the entrance with no additional cost. With the giraffe candy, one can feed the giraffe with his hand and if someone wants more adventure put the candy in mouth and go to feed the giraffe to get kissed by the animal. There is a platform provided for visitors to get in level with the giraffe to look into its eyes. Pet it, feel the fur get cozy with it and enjoy the encounter.

Different people have various different approaches and different expressions while feeding the giraffe. Some will be brave enough trying to get a kiss from giraffe by feeding the through the mouth to mouth while others getting hesitated to feed then with their hands. Children really enjoy the place and found excited to get so close to the giant herbivores animal. While feeding giraffe finds some warthog also enjoying the feast.

Take some good pictures while feeding the giraffe. Feed the giraffe, pet it and spend some quality time with it.

There exist a knowledge centre inside where one can get more details about giraffe’s behavior, geographical details, and history of the giraffe centre. One can attend the lecture and educate himself more about the animal. There is a little giraffe museum that can be explored for getting more details. They have kept giraffe bone here to educate visitors.

Visit the gift centre to collect some African handcraft or some other stuff you can pick from there. The gift shop has some good collections to choose from. Take a sip of coffee/tea in the café inside.

The Rothschild giraffe is an endangered species and in giraffe centre, they are putting their best effort towards the noble cause of protecting and rehabilitating them. They take care of newborn calf taking birth through their giraffe breeding program and freed them to various national park increasing the count of Rothschild giraffe. They also educate school children and youth about Kenya’s wildlife and environment.

The name of the few giraffes here are Betty, Kelly, Daisy, and Salma.

Visit the palace and promote the cause and enjoy your day. Do let us know your experience about visiting the place and share your views on the comment section.