How Expensive is Diani Beach, Kenya?

During our family’s trip around the world, we spent nearly a month in Kenya. We planned this longer stay to keep our budget in check, but how expensive is Diani Beach, Kenya? Kenya had an amazing array of costs. There are things that seem impossibly cheap: tuk-tuks, local pastries, avocados, private snorkel tours. There are things that seem really expensive: Nutella, swim goggles, sunscreen, pasta sauce, and jet-ski rental. However, as we learned about the costs, we were able to both save money and enjoy our time in Kenya!

How Expensive is Diani Beach?

Lodging:

Our family’s first stop in Kenya was for 23 days to Diani Beach. December is the busiest and most expensive month for the Kenyan coast. However, that is also the case in many tourist destinations, and we wanted to be here. We found a great Airbnb for $50/night. In January or February, you can get a 2 bedroom rental on the beach for that price range. For us, in December, we were across the main street from the beach. It was an easy 10-minute walk and a great place. So, if you must stay on the beach, book during off-peak seasons. If you aren’t flexible with your calendar, embrace a premium price or stay across the road. Here are our top tips for booking lodging in Diani Beach:

• Book a place with security. Our compound was staffed 24/7 and completely enclosed with a nice security wall.
• It is safe to walk around during the day. We had a short walk to the beach and to the main road to grab a tuk-tuk and had zero problems. Don’t plan to be out after dark.
• You want a pool. Kenya is hot; Diani Beach area is especially hot. The beach is sandy. You will want to be able to jump in a pool frequently.
• There are bugs. Everywhere. You are in Kenya. Just embrace it and mentally prepare yourself. During our 3+ weeks, we found all of these between our 2 bedrooms: tarantula, mosquito, flag-tailed centipede, giant millipede (on our son’s pillow!), cockroaches, ants, termites, beetles, and a lizard.

Transportation:

This falls in the “impossibly cheap” category. First, we arranged a driver to bring us to Diani Beach from the Mombasa airport. You can read more about that here (as well as all our tips from traveling to Kenya), but the short story is that a 3-hour taxi cost us $37. That’s crazy compared to USA taxi fares.

Once in Diani Beach, there are tuk-tuks everywhere. Our primary grocery shop was about a 9-minute ride away, and we would pay 100-150 KES ($.90-$1.35) per ride. A 25-minute ride down to the other end of the beach would cost 300-400 KES ($2.70-$3.60). This is all so cheap, and the drivers were attentive and nice. We spent very little time or energy trying to haggle the prices lower.

Top tips for transportation in Diani Beach:

• Arrange for a driver to transport back and forth from Mombasa.
• You can arrive directly to the Ukunda Airport from Nairobi Wilson. This is more expensive (especially for a family of 4), but saves the hassle of dealing with Mombasa and the Likoni Ferry. We embraced the hassle of Mombasa to save the money.
• Carry small bills to pay your tuk-tuk driver. Many “don’t” have change, but the bank gladly exchanged 1,000 notes from their ATM into smaller denominations.
• Know the approximate cost of your tuk-tuk route, and offer slightly less to the driver at first. UBER does work in Diani Beach, both to hail a car or a tuk-tuk. We used it to assess an approximate cost for our long trip down the beach. But, we just hailed a driver from the road. After offering slightly less than UBER, the driver will typically ask for 50-100 schillings more, and so there’s no need to haggle.
• Always confirm the cost of the ride before you get into the tuk-tuk.

Entertainment:

Definitely plan to do the Wasini Island and Dolphin tour. Read about our top activities with kids here. We suggest booking the Wasini Island tour directly with Natural World Kenya. If you book with a random local selling the trip on the beach, expect him to accompany you on this all-day trip. Especially for us, traveling for family time with kids, that would have been a detractor from the overall trip.

While in Diani Beach, there are all kinds of water activities to book. Here’s what we did with some pricing:

• Catamaran sailing with snorkel to Robinson Island: $27. We highly recommend this. Grab a tuk-tuk to the fishing village and get a boat captain from there.
• Glass bottom boat with snorkel to Robinson Island: $40. We enjoyed the catamaran more, and it was cheaper.
• Spear-gun fishing with a local: $25. Jon went out with a local fisherman for the morning. Plan to swim from shore out past the reef. This would only be for expert swimmers, as they stayed nearly 3 hours in the water. Visibility wasn’t the best, so the actual fishing suffered, but Jon had a great time nonetheless. Pro tip: plan ahead for visibility by avoiding a morning after heavy rains.
• Massage on the beach: $10/hour.
• Deep sea fishing from a catamaran: $50. We did not do this, but for a 3-4 hour private charter that’s an amazing price. Target sailfish, dorado, tuna, and snapper, while also seeing dolphins and a possible whale-shark!? We will be back to Diani Beach during whale-shark migration for sure and will plan multiple catamaran days beyond the reef.
• Kitesurfing: $50-$400. This is very popular in Diani Beach. If you are IKO certified, rent equipment from $50/day. For lessons, plan to spend around $50-65/hour, on the lower side if you book a lessons package.

Food:

We continued with our primary budgeting plans to eat grocery store food and cook. First, we can control the selection and washing of the food, the purity of the water, and the handling of the food and utensils. Staying healthy is a priority, and we have yet to run into any illness while traveling the world.

Here’s what our primary grocery shopping list contained, with approximate prices:

• Large fuente avocado: $.20/each
• Mango: $.25/each
• Pineapple: $1.50 for small, $2.50 for large
• 10L bottled water: $2.40
• Small loaf of bread: $.45
• Local Simba energy drink: $.23
• Local salsa: $1.50
• Fresh chicken breast: $4/pound.
• 2L Coke: $1.35
• Fresh pastries: $.18/each. We loved the mandazi (sweet bread) and the chapati (tortilla).
• Tortilla chips: $2 for average sized bag.

Here are the expensive grocery items, with prices:

• Sunscreen: $18. This was the only option at our first trip to the primary grocery store. However, we did find a generic sunscreen later during our stay for $5.
• Nutella: $14 for mid-size. We bought the generic brand for $11.
• Peter Pan Peanut Butter: $10 for mid-size. We bought cheap, generic peanut butter for $5.
• Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream: $12 for a pint. We bought generic ice-cream, but still cost $8 for 2L.
• Small pancake syrup: $5.
• Small pasta sauce: $4.

As you can see from the prices, if you eat the local food it can be very cheap. A large bowl of fresh guacamole (2 avocadoes, fresh onion, a little salsa, salt) cost us about $.75 in ingredients and was amazing. If you want name-brand or otherwise higher-processed foods, expect to pay a significant amount.

Conclusion

Diani Beach, like many of the destinations on our trip around the world, ranges from expensive to budget-friendly. If you adjust your grocery shopping and book lodging either off-peak or off-beach, you should have plenty of ability for fun activities at reasonable costs.

Kenya was one of our stops during a year-long trip around the world!  To see all our travel adventures, head over to our Instagram page.

If you have questions or tips for saving money in Diani Beach, let us know!