I stayed at the famous Giraffe Manor hotel in Kenya: an honest review
It is quite something to have a giraffe stick its head through your window and snack on some pellets from your table!
Giraffe Manor, a stunning boutique hotel located in Nairobi Kenya, is one of the most coveted, Instagrammable hotels in the world and for good reason. Here, you stay in a historic manor house, together with a small herd of friendly Rothschild giraffes. They stroll around the beautiful grounds and join visitors for breakfast and high tea. Getting up close and personal with these exquisite animals is an incredible experience and the resulting photographs look like you are standing in Karen Blixen’s “Out of Africa” novel.
Rated Four Stars by Forbes travel guide and voted 2nd best hotel in East Africa by Condé Nast Readers in 2024, Giraffe Manor has become one of the most popular hotels in Africa. The Giraffe Manor location is also convenient as a pitstop between the Nairobi International Airport and Kenya’s safari game reserves. As a result, the property is often booked out more than a year in advance. Having visited the popular safari hotel myself, it’s the perfect start or end to any East African safari and one of our top picks – not just for the wild experience but also for their incredible contribution to giraffe conservation!
Here are our key takeaways from Giraffe Manor in Kenya:
- As a hotel in its own right, Giraffe Manor is exquisite, even without the giraffe interactions.
- The giraffe interactions are very unique, allowing you to experience these beautiful animals up close. Having a giraffe poke its head through my bedroom window was a real novelty, though the high tea and breakfast sessions with the giraffes felt a bit staged.
- These giraffes are part of a breeding programme to preserve this endangered subspecies of the northern giraffe, and the interactions bring in a lot of funds for the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife (AFEW) to carry out their conservation program.
- From a low of about 130 individuals remaining in the wild and near extinction in the mid-1970s, the Rothschild giraffe population has increased to approximately 1,042 in 14 populations in Kenya, an increase of more than 700%. This conservation success story is attributed largely to the work done by the AFEW, a cause worth supporting by visiting Giraffe Manor.
Giraffe Manor Kenya: a petting zoo or genuine conservation operation?
I’ll admit, I felt sceptical about staying at Giraffe Manor Kenya in the lead up to my recent safari. When it comes to staying at a hotel in Africa with animals, petting zoos, or animal interactive activities in general, I’m not a fan. The thought of staying at a hotel with giraffes, having seen so many pictures of guests feeding the giraffes, had me feeling uneasy. The first thing I’ll stay is that giraffes aside, the property itself is absolutely stunning. The manor has balanced its historic and timeless interior with luxurious comfort seamlessly and the rooms are truly beautiful. The dining experience was unbelievable, and staff were all genuinely friendly and kind. It really was a wonderful starting point to our safari and having animals wondering through the grounds (some warthog and antelope too in addition to the giraffe) really got us excited for everything to come!
Up close and personal but the giraffes seem in their element
On the giraffe front, it certainly was a novelty having a giraffe poking its head into my bedroom window and even as a safari guide (being so used to seeing giraffes in the wild), even I got excited to get so close to these amazing animals. You so often only see them in the distance, and it was a cool experience seeing them up-close and personal. Their eyes and those insanely long eyelashes are mesmerizing!
The high tea and breakfast experiences where the giraffes come up to the manor house and stick their head through the window to feed on pellets at your table in the breakfast room - whilst a fun experience for our guests - did feel somewhat staged. Food pellets were thrust into our hands and scattered over the table to entice the giraffe toward us and all the while our waiter dashed from angle to angle taking literally hundreds of photographs with the cameraphones he’d whipped out of everyone’s hands. I can see how this photo culture developed however I couldn’t help but feel we were all on some kind of photo set. The giraffes didn’t seem perturbed – in fact they were quite pushy about making sure they each got their fair share of pellets and heaven help you if you got in the way of their massive heads!
A delicate balance between exploitation and conservation
The giraffe interactions are undoubtedly what draws everyone to stay at giraffe manor, but why are they there and is there a genuine link to giraffe conservation? I asked these questions during my stay and was told that the giraffes are part of a breeding program to bolster wild populations. Having done some further research (shared below!) I do believe that to be the case, however the sad reality is that without having giraffes on site for tourists to feed, the organising running the breeding program wouldn’t receive nearly as much financial support or as many donations. It’s the age-old dilemma between balancing animal exploitation and fundraising for their protection. I think it comes down to balance, and we as a team believe Giraffe Manor and its conservation partner AFEW are worthwhile supporting.
The giraffe with white stockings – the endangered Rothschild Giraffe
There are seven subspecies of giraffe, all of which occupy distinct geographic regions within Africa. The Rothschild’s giraffe, also known as Nubian giraffe, is one of the tallest subspecies, growing up to 6m tall. It closely resembles the Masai giraffe but is generally paler in colour and its orange-brown patches are less jagged and sharp in shape than the Masai giraffe. Uniquely, their markings stop halfway down their legs, giving Rothschild giraffes the impression they are wearing white stockings.
The Rothschild giraffe: from facing extinction to conservation success
The Rothschild giraffe is one of the most endangered populations of giraffe on the planet. Isolated populations live in savannahs, grasslands, and open woodlands of Uganda and Kenya, with notable spots being Lake Nakuru National Park in Kenya and Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda. Various captive breeding programmes are in place to help bolster population sizes and expand the gene pool – the most notable program of which is the Giraffe Centre in Nairobi, Kenya.
Giraffes face mounting threats from habitat loss and fragmentation, with the growing human population converting wilderness areas into farmland, mines and housing settlements. In addition, climate change, disease and poaching have had further negative impacts on the giraffe population.
In Kenya, the Rothschild giraffe population decreased significantly up until the late 1980s, however conservation efforts have resulted in the population since rebounding. From a low of about 130 individuals remaining in the wild and near extinction in the mid-1970s, the Rothschild giraffe population has increased to approximately 1,042 in 14 populations in Kenya, which represents an increase of more than 700%. This conservation success story is attributed largely to the work done by the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife (AFEW). Today, just over 4,000 Nubian giraffes are estimated to remain in the wild (this includes the genetically identical former Rothschild’s giraffes), with approximately 1,040 in Kenya, 2,420 in Uganda, 450 in South Sudan and less than 200 in Ethiopia.
The beginning of the famous Kenyan hotel, Giraffe Manor
Giraffe manor was built in the 1930’s, modelled on an old Scottish hunting lodge. The property was later purchased in 1974 by Betty & Jock Leslie-Melville, at which time it was home to three wild bull Rothschild giraffes. Shortly after their purchase of the manor, they learned that the only remaining wild Rothschild giraffes in Kenya were in danger due to a governmental sale of land & loss of their the sole habitat. The Leslie-Melvilles agreed to rehome one of the giraffe, an 8-foot-tall (2.4 m), 450-pound baby they named Daisy, about whom Betty subsequently wrote the book "Raising Daisy Rothschild", later turned into the film, The Last Giraffe.
Daisy was soon joined by another baby giraffe, Marlon, and so began the breeding program of Rothschild giraffes. Part of the land of the Manor was given over to the Giraffe Centre, run by the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife, a charitable organisation set up by the Leslie Melvilles and Betty's daughter in 1972.
Help protect the Rothschild Giraffe: make a Giraffe Manor hotel booking or visit the AFEW Giraffe Centre
For each guest that stays at Giraffe Manor, $10 is donated to AFEW. These funds help the AFEW run their successful breeding programme for the endangered Rothschild's giraffe. The AFEW Giraffe Centre is located next to Giraffe Manor and guests of Giraffe Manor can stroll across the front lawn of the house to visit the AFEW centre, which allows visitors to feed the giraffe from a specially built platform. There is information on display about giraffe conservation in Kenya, as well as a short nature walk and gift shop, proceeds of which go towards giraffe conservation in Kenya.
You can also join the Giraffe Manor Sponsorship Programme, whereby you can foster one of the Rothschild’s giraffes that roam Giraffe Manor’s grounds, for $60 per year. 50% of your fee goes directly to the Giraffe Conservation Foundation to help giraffe conservation efforts all over Africa and the remaining 50% is donated to The Safari Collection’s carefully chosen conservation and community programmes.
Stay at Giraffe Manor: for Giraffe Manor reservations, enquire here
Foster a giraffe here: https://shop.directpay.online/paymybills/GiraffeSponsorship
Written by Michelle Pengilly
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