Nairobi is a rather recent city, where the scarce old colonial buildings have not been taken care of. Downtown is really ugly. Most expats leave in the neighborhoods around, which are more leafy.
During the day, you can wander everywhere safely, though it's hardly advisable to carry items attracting attention such as cameras or phones on you in Downtown. Would also avoid wandering alone in some parts of downtown during the week-end, as streets are empty. As soon as it becomes dark, walking is an absolute no-no, except in some busy streets in downtown. Everyone takes his/her car or a cab, you'll get quickly used to it.
Downtown offers some good nightlife, more with a Kenya audience, while the expat crowd is mainly concentrated in the restaurants, bars and nightclubs of Westlands and Hurlingham, two neighborhoods located not too far from downtown. You'll find tons of different places to go, with a very varied choice, which does not come cheap sometimes. I'm sure you'll find out places you'll like once in Nairobi.
Security is not good in Nairobi at night, though it has improved as compared to last year. You'll quickly learn the safety tips from people you'll meet. You get used to it.
To be honest, there is little cultural life in town, except maybe in the French cultural centre. There are also not many things worth seeing. Karen Blixen's house, giraffe center and others are easily seen all of them in one day... Nairobi National Park is not worth seeing if you're going to visit "real" parks later on. There are a few nice places for the week-end, like having lunch in the restaurants of the leafy Karen suburb (Talisman or Rusty Nail are the usual choice), but really not a lot to do.
If you have free time however, there are many nice places out of Nairobi where you can go for the week-end, at all prices. You can go to the parks and see animals, go rafting, go for some trekking, mountain-climbing, horseriding...
The coast is quite nice. Mombasa is an interesting city as it's has much more the feeling of a true African city than Nairobi. There is even an old neighborhood but it's in a pitiful state and not really worth seeing. Most of the coast is occupied by huge touristic complexes that are not worth entering, though you'll find some cheap cottages to rent with more privacy. It gets indeed more interesting when you reach Lamu island, which has a nice old city and a very specific soul of its own, as well as a weird mixture of visitors : expats, people working in the humanitarian businesses, millionaires having a house, backpackers... and of course the local people, whose Muslim culture is very different from what you see in mainland.
Would say that nairobi itself is not a very nice place to live, but you'll meet tons of interesting people as it's a very cosmopolit city, and you'll have the opportunity to go to some fabulous places during the week-end.
'm going to be living in Nairobi from January for a year and need some advice from people that know the city. I'm the type of person that likes exploring a place and finding the interesting places, buildings, districts, sights etc. I lived in Hanoi for a few months a couple of years ago and loved it. Plenty of old interesting places and culture to wander around and discover. Researching Kenya it seemed like Mombasa and Lamu might be places that I would enjoy.
From what I know of Nairobi it's a relatively new city and also not necessarily a place to just wander around due to safety. First of all, what are people's opinions on this? Am I wrong or is it pretty much like this?
Second, does anybody have a good tips for places to go after I've been there a few months and checked out all the obvious things?
Cheers
