Diani Beach with Kids
Our family spent 4 weeks in Kenya during our trip around the world. We spent three of those weeks doing some great activities in Diani Beach with our kids. You can read about safety and travel to Kenya here and about how expensive Kenya is here. Diani Beach has been consistently ranked as one of the top beaches in Africa, winning the #1 spot multiple years in a row. But, is Diani Beach kid-friendly? Yes! Here are our top activities with kids in Diani Beach:
1. Wasini Island and Dolphin Tour
There are locals all over the beach selling this trip, but we’d suggest booking with Natural World Kenya. Normally, we are all for helping the locals through our tourism. However, if you book with a person on the beach (who you just met), you can expect them to show up and accompany you throughout the tour.
The actual boat captain and snorkel guides provided by the Wasini Island and Dolphin Tour were great, and there is no reason you need a “local” to accompany you. Natural World Kenya arranged the driver who picked us up and transported us (it is about a 45-minute drive) to the tour. He also brought us directly home after the tour. We definitely would not have wanted an extra local from the beach to accompany our family for the day.
The tour itself was great. The boat wasn’t very fast, but we enjoyed the ride out to the snorkeling with included drinks and snacks. The snorkeling itself was AWESOME. We have snorkeled all over the world, and Kisite Marine Park is right at the top of our favorite places. After snorkeling, we enjoyed the sand bar beach for a few minutes before heading to see the dolphins.
We motored outside the reef and quickly came upon several dolphins. They were still feeding so not as active on top of the water, but we did get to see one amazing jump! After following them for a few minutes, we headed to lunch on Wasini Island.
We ate at Charlie Claws, and it was awesome! The service and the food were both incredible, and it has a great view over the water. Other people on our tour (that booked via locals) ate at a different restaurant: they said it was just okay. After lunch, we walked through the village and the school on the island.
Overall this was an awesome excursion. We had great transportation, great snorkeling, saw dolphins, and ate a great meal!
2. Take a catamaran to Robinson Island
One of the most popular tours in Diani Beach is to visit Robinson Island. It is a sand bar that is close to shore at the same distance as the reef. At low tide, the water recedes all around and you can swim to the “island” and walk around. The snorkeling around Robinson Island is pretty great as well. It is definitely not as good as the Wasini tour but worth it!
We ended up going out to Robinson for snorkeling 2 different times. First, we booked with a local at our beach (north end of Diani) and took a “glass-bottom boat”. Now, the boat was not glamorous at all. It did have a small plexiglass viewing area to see down but was pretty slow. Make sure to confirm the appropriate snorkel gear will be provided when you agree to book and before getting on the boat. The cost from the north end of Diani Beach was 4,500 KES (about $40) for 2 adults and 2 kids.
Our family all agreed that the second trip was much better. It is our strong recommendation to go via catamaran! We hailed a tuk-tuk from our Airbnb down to the area of Robinson Island. Tuk-tuks are fun for the kids and cheap. From there, we rode in a hand-hewn catamaran made in the local village from a mango tree. It was a little small but was a lot more fun than the first boat. The snorkeling was great again. The total cost was 3,000 KES (about $27) for a 2.5-hour private tour for our family.
Pro tip: if you want to walk on dry sand at Robinson Island, make sure you go at low tide. We went as the tide was coming in, and could stand up, but the waves were covering and crashing.
3. Relax at the beach
The beach is truly stunning: white sand, palm trees, and beautiful water. We went to the beach often and loved it. You can just relax, build a sandcastle, bury your oldest child up to his head, or walk the shore. We stayed close to where the Kongo River empties into the ocean, and you can also arrange a boat ride to take you up the river (popular at sunset).
There are a lot of locals selling trinkets, coconuts, camel rides, and tours. Uness truly interested, your best bet is to just continually say, “No thank you,” until they leave. We also found that setting our stuff down in the shade of a resort’s palm trees tends to keep the hassling to a minimum. Also, nobody ever bothered our kids.
4. Visit Soul Breeze Resort
Jon has had kiteboarding on his adventure bucket list for a long time, and we finally booked a full instructional course while in Diani Beach. The kite school was located at Soul Breeze Resort, and so we went as a family for Jon’s first lesson. The resort was great for kids! Abigail found a new friend immediately, and there were plenty of kids and activities. Brandon loves the sand and shared some sand toys. There was plenty of comfortable seats and very reasonably priced food and drinks. To access the resort, plan to book a water-sport lesson of some kind or eat a meal. This is much more reasonable than the other fancier resorts that offer “day passes” to use their facilities for $50+ per person.
5. Incorporate a Safari
No trip to Kenya is complete without seeing at least a few African mammals! From Diani Beach, there are a variety of options for this ranging from single-day trips to multiday safaris. If you haven’t set aside time during your trip, consider Tsavo East only 2.5 hours from the beach. Natural World Kenya offers great 1-day excursions in search of lions, cheetahs, elephants, and more.
Another way to incorporate wildlife viewing is to travel by train from Mombasa to Nairobi. Giraffes, zebras, and elephants (more likely later in the day) can often be seen along the 6-hour journey. Flights are often much cheaper out of Nairobi so this can be a money-saver and an experience! Economy tickets are around $10 and first-class around $30. Make sure you purchase the express train so that it’s not an all-day journey. As you can only purchase online tickets via M-Pesa, see this article for full details on your options.
Of course, Kenya also has amazing multiday safaris. You don’t need to devote a full week: a 2 or 3-night option is doable from Diani Beach. After narrowing our choices down to Amboseli National Park (home to Mount Kilimanjaro views) and the iconic Masai Mara (neighboring the Serengeti in Tanzania), we chose the latter due to the particular wildlife we hoped to see. You can read all about this amazing experience here.
To see all our travel adventures during a year-long trip around the world, head over to our Instagram page.
If you have questions or thoughts on activities in Diani Beach with kids, let us know! Happy Travels!
