Kenya
Maralal
Samburu warriors race camels through a highland frontier town where Kenya's wild north begins.
Dust kicks up around the legs of racing camels as Samburu warriors in red and blue shúkàs urge them down the track, shouting, laughing, competing. Maralal sits at 1,800 metres on the Leroghi Plateau, a highland frontier town where beaded warriors browse hardware shops and the air carries woodsmoke and cattle.
Maralal is the administrative capital of Samburu County in northern Kenya, positioned at the edge of the central highlands where the landscape drops dramatically toward the desert lowlands of the north. The town is best known for the Maralal International Camel Derby, held annually since 1990, which draws professional and amateur riders from around the world for a race across the surrounding rangeland. Maralal was also where Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya's founding president, was detained during the colonial emergency of the 1950s — his former detention house is now a modest museum on the edge of town. The settlement functions as the last supply point before the roads deteriorate and the landscape opens into the vast, sparsely populated north. The Maralal National Sanctuary, adjacent to the town, offers walking safaris among zebra, impala, and eland without the need for a vehicle.
Solo
Maralal is the threshold between Kenya's familiar highlands and its wild north — a place to acclimatise, gather local knowledge, and commit to the road ahead.
Friends
The Camel Derby is a participatory event — enter the amateur race, cheer from the sidelines, and spend evenings swapping stories with riders and warriors at the town's bars.
Couple
The highland setting, Samburu culture, and proximity to walking safaris in the national sanctuary offer an intimate gateway to Kenya's north without the full expedition commitment.
- Maralal sits at 1,400 metres at the point where the asphalt ends and the northern frontier begins — the de facto gateway to Samburu County and the first highland town on the road to Lake Turkana.
- The Maralal International Camel Derby, held annually since 1990, is the world's only international camel race — a 42-kilometre course through Samburu territory with both professional and amateur riders.
- Wilfred Thesiger, the English explorer who documented Arabia's Empty Quarter and the Marshes of Iraq, spent his final years at Maralal and is buried here — his home and papers remain in the town.
- The Maralal Game Sanctuary surrounding the town has resident Grevy's zebra, eland, and impala — visible without leaving the town limits, the northernmost accessible community sanctuary in Kenya.
Camel meat and chapati from the market stalls — chewy, lean, and unlike anything else.
Smoky chai in tin-roofed tea houses while warriors browse the bead market outside.
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