Best Places To Stay In Lamu - Best Beach Hotels
Lamu is a fascinating fishing village island, which is rich in history as a former trading post. If you are after the Swahili experience, this place is a great insight to the culture. However, if you are after white sandy beaches, or even pretty beaches at all - this is not the place for you. Off the coastline, you can find better beaches on tiny islands. However, the whole Kenyan coastline is outshined by Zanzibar and the beaches and islands of Tanzania for an idyllic Indian Ocean experience.
Kizingoni Villas
The houses are a relatively new addition to the Lamu coastline but offer a great alternative to private houses of Lamu and Shela. Each of the houses has been built to a very high standard and, with the luxury of having staff to pick up groceries from Lamu and, if you are not in the mood for cooking, to cook, a stay in one of the houses is fantastic.The only drawback that we can mention is that the plot they have, while benefitting from being around the point, is not in as good a location as the nearby Kizingo.Manda Bay
Manda Bay is definitely up there with the best (but also the most expensive) of the luxury beach properties on the Kenya Coast. Set a mere 20 minute boat ride from Lamu Island, the lodge is set on the west side of Manda Island which gives it a protected outlook onto the inner waterways that run between the islands. This is both a blessing and a drawback in our book.The blessing is that it does not suffer from the trade winds that can blow fairly heavily up and down the coast, and it gives the lodge access to one of the best water skiing areas I have seen! The drawback is that, where Kiwayu has idyllic white sand for the beach, Manda have more of a yellow sand beach…but this is not much of a drawback. The communal area is one of our favourites of any lodge.