Day Trips from Nairobi

I see the vast majority of the posts are about safaris. While I enjoy any animal sighting, I am most interested in the two legged kind. Does anybody have recommendations as to neighborhoods or towns to see within short distance from Nairobi center, accessible by public transportations?

I am most interested in working class areas, even if they do not have any obvious tourist attraction or infrastructure. To put safety in perspective, I am used to visit slums in South America and Arab Africa, but I'm not overly suicidal and I've never been to Black Africa. Thanks!

Emgasu,hehee you will definitely enjoy seeing what you like,the black Africa is over role interesting i can assure you with everything i mean,not just the animal,the 2 legged kind,the red streets,night life,day life and all the kinds that life offers. Nairobi is a biz city,so expect even different walks of life. You can visit different estates using public means.Nairobi outskirt is so cute. Where will you be parking? could advice from this point.
TX Cate

travelingcate, I don't have any definite plans yet so I don't know where I will be staying. It does not matter though -I'm a city explorer so I'll gladly go crosstown to a suburb or town if I think it can be interesting. No need for it to have a particular touristic attraction -sometimes we like places for no obvious reason, so if you have any such recommendation, share it, it'd be appreciated.

A hotel, backpackers,rental house,apartment or home stay? What do you have in mind? In the mean time PM me in this link on FB for a chat https://www.facebook.com/TravelingCate

emgash: to get back to your original question, a trip out to Machakos, 50km southeast of Nairobi, would be the perfect place to start this kind of exploration. It's laid-back, friendly, relatively compact and very easy to navigate. Thika, about 40km northeast, is a little more hustly, but has some nice attractions, including the old Blue Posts hotel and a couple of significant waterfalls.

There's non-stop public transport to both these towns, and plenty of basic, cheap hotels if you want to stay over.

Safari njema!

Richard

Thanks everybody!

I'd consider a few overnight trips as you can really see the towns come alive at night too. Narok is about 3 hours by matatu and if you head to Thika head onwards to 14 falls (Ol Donyo national park is also there). Take care at night. Dancing, eating, drinking with locals is great fun!