• Sail on a romantic dhow (traditional Arab sailing boat) in Mombasa, while feasting on a delicious seafood dinner and watching the moon rise over the old harbour.

• Go shopping in Mombasa. Biashara Street is probably the best place to buy kikoi and khanga cloths. The main city market is the Makupa Market, off Mwembe Tayari. Serious souvenir shoppers should also head for Bombolulu Workshops and Cultural Village, where disabled men and women produce high-quality leatherwork, jewellery and other crafts.

• Visit the many attractions on the beach road north of Mombasa, including: the Bamburi Quarry Nature Trail, which also features a butterfly farm; the giant crocs at Mamba Crocodile Village; and Ngomongo Villages, a cultural park demonstrating the lifestyle of 11 different Kenyan tribes.

• Skate on East Africa's first ice-skating facility. The Solar Ice Rink, which opened in December 2005 at the Panari Hotel in Nairobi, can accommodate 200 skaters and measures 1,400 sq m (15,000 sq ft)

• Go scuba-diving, snorkelling, sailing, waterskiing, swimming and surfing on Kenya's Coral Coast. The most popular resorts to the north of Mombasa include Bamburi, Kikambala, Kilifi, Malindi and Nyali. Along the south coast, the best and most famous beach is the 10km- (6-mile) long, dazzlingly white Diani Beach, some 40km (24 miles) south of Mombasa.

• Try your hand at deep-sea fishing, which is at its best along the coast between July and April. Sailfish, marlin, swordfish, kingfish, barracuda and tuna are all abundant.

• Climb Mount Kenya, an extinct volcano. At 4,986m (16,358ft) above sea level, it is the second-highest mountain in Africa. The Mountain Club of Kenya Guide to Mount Kenya and Mount Kilimanjaro can be bought from the Mountain Club of Kenya.

• Take in sweeping views of the Great Rift Valley from the road between Nairobi and Naivasha. Here the 2,000m- (6,560ft-) high escarpment walls plunge to the flat-bottomed valley floor below, which is dotted by a small string of volcanoes and brackish soda lakes.

• Watch baby elephants play at the Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage on the edge of Nairobi National Park. This is an important sanctuary for orphaned and abandoned elephants, which are hand reared before being re-released back into the wild.

• Also near here, at the Langata Giraffe Centre, experience the unique opportunity of feeding the resident Rothschild giraffes from a giraffe-height tower.

• For those staying on the coast, do take an excursion to the Shimba Hills National Reserve, the most accessible place from the beach resorts to see big game, leopard and Kenya's only population of sable antelope. There is also the Mwalu-Ganje Elephant Sanctuary here


• In just half a day, spot a full range of animals in the Nairobi National Park, only 8km (5 miles) from Nairobi city centre. Kenya's first national park, today it still looks much as it did in the early photographs - wild, undulating pasture dotted with every kind of East African plain-dwelling animal except elephants.

• Float over herds of game in the Masai Mara National Reserve in a hot-air balloon. The hour-long trip sets off at dawn and ends with a champagne breakfast. Almost all the lodges in the reserve offer this excursion.