Taita Hills Wildlife Sanctuary is a privately-owned wildlife sanctuary in Kenya established in 1972. The sanctuary covers an area of 28,000 acres of mosaic habitat where the plant physiognomy is riverine forest, savanna wood and grassland. The sanctuary straddles the Southern Tsavo West National Park and is an important dispersal area and migrating corridor for wildlife between Tsavo East National Park and Tsavo West National Park and making it a highly valued tourism recreational area and of ecological importance

Kenya’s rarest (and most threatened) birds live here: the Taita apalis and Taita thrush. But also, the Taita Hills purple-glossed snake, the Taita blade-horned chameleon, the Taita falcon, the Taita white-eye and the Southern banded snake-eagle have their home here. Lovers of larger wildlife can look for African bush elephants, lions, cheetahs, buffalos, leopards, hyenas, giraffes and zebras.

Taita Hills is also home to areas of cloud forests – forests that usually have a layer of clouds hanging above. These forests are home to some very old indigenous trees that can reach a diameter of ten people holding hands.

Occupying a corner of the lobby in the Taita Hills Game Lodge is an engaging little open-sided museum that tells the story of WWI as it played out in East Africa. There are artifacts found on the nearby former battlefields (from bullets made in 1912 to glass shards from bottles of Indian hair oil), archival photos, informative and detailed panels on the course of the war and major personalities.

A stay at Saltlick Lodge is one of the best choices you’d make if you are hoping to see large herds of elephants, and other wild animals up close. The lodge is built on stilts allowing you a wonderful view of the animals that come to quench their thirst at the lodge’s waterhole.