Amboseli covers 392 km² of dry lake bed, swamp and acacia woodland in Kajiado County, fed by meltwater from Kilimanjaro that surfaces as permanent springs. Those swamps concentrate wildlife in the dry season and make sightings reliable.
The park is the site of the longest-running elephant study in the world, begun by Cynthia Moss in 1972. Individual families are known by name, and Amboseli still holds some of Africa's few remaining big tuskers.
Views of Kilimanjaro are best in the first hour after sunrise and the last hour before sunset, when the cloud cap lifts. Observation Hill gives the only permitted out-of-vehicle vantage point.
Highlights
- Free-ranging elephant families with big tuskers
- Kilimanjaro backdrop at dawn and dusk
- Observation Hill panorama over the swamps
- Maasai group ranches on the park fringe