Wheelchair Accessible Safari in Nairobi National Park

How I got into a safari 4×4 and spent a few hours on a game drive through Nairobi National Park as a person using a wheelchair — the transfer process, the equipment, and what we saw.

Table of Contents

The Company: Accessible Travel Kenya

I booked the game drive through Accessible Travel Kenya, a Nairobi-based company that specializes in travel for people with disabilities. Their site is at accessibletravel.co.ke. They list accessible safari packages, wheelchair accessible vehicle rentals, mobility equipment rentals, and airport meet-and-assist service at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA).

What stood out to me is that the owner of the company met me in person for the pickup and stayed involved through the whole day. That is not something I have experienced often, and it made a real difference — the person making the accessibility decisions was standing right there while we worked out the transfer.

The Vehicle: A Land Cruiser With a Seat Removed and Long Ramps

Dark green Toyota Land Cruiser troop carrier parked on a dirt track, pop-up roof raised, snorkel and off-road tires visible
The safari Land Cruiser, with the pop-up roof raised. The height of the door sill is what makes long ramps necessary.

The safari vehicle was a Toyota Land Cruiser troop carrier — the standard game-drive 4×4 in Kenya, with a pop-up roof, a snorkel, and off-road tires — modified for accessibility. One of the passenger seats had been removed to open up floor space, and the team brought a pair of long aluminium channel ramps that ran from the pavement up to the side door.

The length of the ramps matters here. A Land Cruiser built for game drives sits high off the ground, and short ramps would have created a slope no one could safely push up. These ran several feet out from the vehicle, which kept the angle manageable. They are channel ramps rather than a solid platform, so the wheels have to track along them — the team handled the alignment.

The Transfer Process, Step by Step

The loading happened in the car park before we set out, and the team had clearly done it before:

  1. I transferred out of my power wheelchair and into a manual wheelchair that the company provided.
  2. The team set the ramps against the side door and pushed me up them in the manual wheelchair and into the Land Cruiser.
  3. Once inside, they lifted and transferred me out of the manual wheelchair and into one of the vehicle’s seats for the drive.
Two long aluminium channel ramps running from the pavement up to the open side door of a safari Land Cruiser, with a person seated in a manual wheelchair at the bottom and four staff members positioned around the ramps
The ramps set against the side door. Note how far out they run — that length is what keeps the slope manageable.
Staff members from Accessible Travel Kenya guiding a manual wheelchair up the ramps and through the side door of the Land Cruiser
Going up. Three staff handled the push and kept the wheels tracking in the channels.

The reverse process ran at the end of the day. Riding in a fixed vehicle seat rather than staying in a wheelchair is worth planning for — you’ll want to think about your own seating tolerance, trunk support, and cushion for a game drive that runs a few hours over rough ground. Three or four staff members were involved in each transfer.

The Second Vehicle: Bringing My Scooter Along

My scooter was loaded into a second vehicle that followed us for the day. The reason was the two stops most people pair with a Nairobi National Park game drive — the Giraffe Centre and the Sheldrick elephant orphanage. Unlike the game drive, both of those are visited on foot, so I would want my own equipment rather than a loaner manual wheelchair. Rather than leave the scooter at the hotel, the team brought it along in a chase vehicle so it would be ready if we went.

The Giraffe Centre (giraffecentre.org) is in Lang’ata, run by the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife. It was founded in 1979 as a breeding program for the endangered Rothschild’s giraffe and added an environmental education centre for Kenyan schoolchildren a few years later. The main draw is a raised feeding platform where visitors hand-feed the giraffes at head height. It is open daily, and entrance fees and shop sales fund the education programs, which are free for schoolchildren.

The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (sheldrickwildlifetrust.org) runs the elephant orphanage — the Nairobi Nursery — inside Nairobi National Park itself, entered through the Magadi Gate off Magadi Road. Orphaned elephants are rescued, raised by keepers, and eventually reintegrated into the wild through units in the Tsavo area. The public visit is one hour a day, 11am to noon, and is by advance booking only, which is worth knowing before you plan around it. Details are on their Nairobi Nursery visiting page.

In the end we decided to do only the game drive, so the scooter stayed in the second vehicle all day and I never used it. I am still glad it was there. The point worth taking from this is that a company willing to run a chase vehicle makes it practical to combine a game drive with stops that need your own mobility equipment — you are not forced to choose between the two.

The Game Drive

View from inside the Land Cruiser looking forward past the driver, stopped in Nairobi traffic beside a red bus, with a passenger seated on the right
Nairobi traffic on the way to the park, seen from my seat in the Land Cruiser.

Nairobi National Park sits directly on the edge of the city, and that is part of what makes it unusual — at several points we could see the Nairobi skyline and the elevated expressway on the horizon behind grazing giraffes. Getting there from the hotel meant a stretch of Nairobi traffic, and then we were on park tracks.

A giraffe walking through tall grass with the Nairobi skyline and elevated expressway visible on the horizon

We drove through the park for a few hours. This was a true off-road experience — not a paved loop with pullouts, but actual dirt tracks across the park. I felt safe the entire time. The driving was careful, the vehicle handled the terrain well, and at no point did I feel like I was being jostled beyond what I could manage. Animals came close enough to the vehicle that no zoom lens was required.

View from a passenger seat through the vehicle's open side window to a zebra standing a few feet away in dry grass
This is what I mean about not needing a zoom lens — straight out the open side window.

I want to be direct about what this meant to me: a game drive is something I never thought I would be able to do. The barrier had never been the wildlife or the park. It was always the vehicle and the ground. Solving those two problems is what made the day possible.

Wildlife We Saw

Over the course of the drive we saw:

  • Lions, resting in a group in the tall grass
  • Giraffes
  • Rhinoceros
  • Hippopotamuses
  • Crocodiles, hauled out on a riverbank
  • Zebras, including several right alongside the track
  • Eland and other antelope
  • Olive baboons
  • A wide range of bird species
Four lions lying together in tall dry grass at the edge of a thicket
A rhinoceros grazing in open grassland between scattered thorn bushes
A zebra walking along the dirt track directly beside the vehicle, photographed through the window, with more zebras in the grass behind
Several crocodiles hauled out on muddy banks along a brown river channel
A herd of eland grazing beyond a dry gully, with a flat-topped acacia and a weathered tree stump in the foreground
Three olive baboons sitting in tall grass and low scrub, one looking toward the camera

Restrooms in the Park

Here is something I did not expect to find: the public restroom areas in the park include a wheelchair accessible stall. A game drive runs several hours from the gate out to the far tracks and back, and knowing there is somewhere to stop along the way changes how you plan the day — and, honestly, how much water you are willing to drink before you set out.

A single-storey concrete restroom block in Nairobi National Park with a curved overhanging roof, seen from the dirt track. A flagstone apron slopes up from the ground to the first doorway at the near end, with no step at the entrance. Further along the building, the other stall entrances are reached by a step up.
The restroom block from the track. The flagstone apron at the near end is the level approach to the accessible stall.

The approach is what makes it usable. A flagstone apron slopes up from the ground to the doorway at the near end of the building, with a shallow edge where the stone meets the dirt but no step. The other stalls further along the block are reached by a step up, so the accessible one is the first door. Everything around the building is loose dirt, gravel and scattered rock, and that is the rougher part of the trip — getting from the vehicle to the bottom of the flagstone.

The recessed entrance vestibule of the accessible stall, screened by a low concrete privacy wall. The floor is white tile, and the doorway is fitted with a wooden double door. The flagstone path meets the tile with only a shallow lip at the threshold. An electrical box and a light switch are mounted on the side wall.
The entrance vestibule behind the privacy screen. The threshold from flagstone to tile is a shallow lip rather than a step.

A low concrete privacy wall screens the entrance, and behind it the doorway is recessed into a small tiled vestibule. The threshold where the flagstone meets the tile is a shallow lip rather than a step. The door is a wooden double door and both leaves swing outward, which opens the doorway to well beyond the width of a standard single door.

Looking into the accessible stall through the wooden double door. Both leaves swing outward, opening the full width of the doorway. Inside are white tiled walls and floor, a wall-hung sink with a mirror above it, a toilet against the far wall with a grab bar mounted on the wall beside it, and a small window set high in the wall. A loose rock sits on the floor just inside the doorway.
Both door leaves swing outward, which opens up the full width of the doorway. The rock on the floor is being used as a doorstop.
The full interior of the accessible stall: a long, narrow room with white tiled walls and floor. On the left wall are a soap dispenser, a mirror, a paper dispenser and a wall-hung sink with open space beneath it. Against the far wall is a toilet with a single grab bar mounted on the wall to its left and a hand-held sprayer alongside. A small window sits high in the far wall, and a floor drain is set into the tile. A loose rock rests on the floor in the middle of the room.
The full room. The grab bar is on the left of the toilet only, and the layout is long and narrow rather than square.

Inside, the walls and floor are tiled and the fittings are basic but present: a wall-hung sink with open space underneath it so you can pull up to it, a mirror, a soap dispenser and a paper dispenser on the side wall, and a toilet against the far wall with a grab bar and a hand-held sprayer. A window set high in the wall gives natural light, and there is a floor drain set into the tile.

A few things I would want to know before counting on it:

  • The grab bar is on one side of the toilet only — the wall to its left. There is nothing on the open side, so the transfer works in one direction and not the other.
  • The room is long and narrow rather than square. There is room to get in and up alongside the toilet, but a full turn in a larger power chair would be tight, and you may be reversing back out.
  • Loose rocks were sitting on the tiled floor, used as doorstops. Someone will need to move them clear before you roll in.
  • I did not see a call button or emergency pull.
  • Bring your own supplies. The dispensers are mounted, but I would not plan around them being stocked.

None of that is a complaint. A stall with a level approach, a wide door, a grab bar and a sink you can get under, out on the tracks of a national park, is more than I went in expecting. It is worth knowing it is there, and worth asking your guide where the nearest one is before you head out for the day.

The Verdict

An accessible game drive in Nairobi National Park is possible, and Accessible Travel Kenya made it work. The equipment — a Land Cruiser with a seat removed, long aluminium ramps, a loaner manual wheelchair, and a second vehicle carrying my scooter — was matched by a team that knew how to use it. I transferred twice on the way in and twice on the way out, rode in a vehicle seat for a few hours over rough terrain, and felt safe throughout. If you use a wheelchair and have written off a safari, this is worth a conversation with them.

This review reflects my personal experience and observations. Accessibility features, equipment, and staffing can change over time, so I’d recommend confirming current details directly with Accessible Travel Kenya, the Giraffe Centre, or the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust before you travel.

This website is provided free of charge and for educational purposes only. It solely intends to be a resource that will help save fellow people with mobility impairments time and money with travel. As always, please perform your own research and confirm any trip or itinerary will work for your specific needs--all of our travel experiences and physical abilities are different. Moreover, travel involves risks, both known and unknown, and I cannot (and do not) make any guarantees or representations regarding the continued accuracy of the website's information or about your travel experience. This website has not been endorsed by any organization and is my own personal experiences only. No legal advice, solicitation, representation, or other relationship of any kind is created by this website. Copyright 2025. All rights reserved.