Isiolo
Isiolo is the town where the tarmac stops being a highway through farmland and starts being the road north. It sits near Kenya’s geographical centre, 285 kilometres from Nairobi at roughly 1,150 metres, at the junction of the A2 and the B4, and almost every safari heading for the northern reserves and conservancies passes through it. Very few stop. This page is about what Isiolo is actually for, which is a more useful question than what there is to see in it.
The Junction Town
Two roads meet here and the whole character of the place follows from it. The A2 runs north from Isiolo towards Marsabit, Moyale and the Ethiopian border, forming part of the long route that links Cairo to Cape Town. The B4 heads east towards Meru and the eastern slopes of Mount Kenya. South of the town the tarmac runs back through Nanyuki and Karatina to Nairobi.
North of Isiolo the country changes. The cultivated highland belt ends, the scrub opens out, the pastoral economy takes over and the distances between settlements lengthen sharply. Travellers heading to Samburu, Buffalo Springs, Shaba, the Mathews Range, Marsabit or Lake Turkana all go through here, and Isiolo is conventionally and accurately described as the gateway to northern Kenya.
For a traveller that translates into three practical functions. It is the last full-service town before the north: fuel, cash, supplies and mechanics. It is a natural break point on a long drive. And it is a transfer hub for anyone changing between road and air.
The County and Its People
Isiolo County covers 25,605 square kilometres and recorded a population of 268,002 in the 2019 Population and Housing Census, giving a density of about eleven people per square kilometre. Just over half of that population lives in rural areas, and pastoralism is the county’s biggest economic activity, with roughly 80 per cent of people depending on it.
The town is one of the more mixed places in northern Kenya. The population is largely Cushitic, including Oromo-speaking Borana and Sakuye, alongside Somali, Ameru, Turkana and Samburu communities and a long-established Asian trading presence. That mix goes back to the town’s origins as a settlement for Somali soldiers after the First World War, and it is why Isiolo feels different from the highland towns an hour to the south and different again from the settlements further north.
Isiolo International Airport and the LAPSSET Corridor
Isiolo has an airport that is considerably larger than the town’s tourism traffic explains. Commissioned in July 2017 on a site of around 330 hectares, with a stated capacity of 125,000 passengers a year, it was built as national infrastructure rather than as a safari airstrip.
The reason is the LAPSSET corridor, the Lamu Port, South Sudan and Ethiopia Transport project, under which Isiolo is planned as the fork where the corridor divides towards Ethiopia and towards South Sudan. Isiolo is designated as a resort city under Kenya’s Vision 2030 development framework. How much of that arrives, and when, is an open question, but it explains the scale of what is already built.
For travellers the airport is a practical asset. It makes Isiolo a viable entry and exit point for the northern circuit without a full day of driving at either end, and it is a genuine alternative to the conservancy airstrips further out.
What There Is to Do In and Around Isiolo
Isiolo is a working town rather than a destination, and a guide that pretends otherwise is not helping. What it does have is worth an afternoon on the way through.
- The town market, which is one of the better places in the region to see the pastoral economy operating rather than being described
- A long-standing trade in beadwork, knives and silverwork, sold in the town rather than in a craft centre
- Cultural visits arranged to surrounding communities, which is the most substantive thing the town itself offers
- Provisioning for a northern trip, which sounds mundane and is the single most useful thing Isiolo does
Isiolo is also one of the few towns in Kenya where the difference between a highland economy and a pastoral one is visible from the same street. Herds are moved through the outskirts, the livestock trade sets the rhythm of the week, and the drought cycle that governs northern Kenya is a topic of ordinary conversation rather than a conservation abstraction. For travellers heading to community conservancies further north, an hour in Isiolo is a better introduction to how that country works than any briefing at a camp.
The county also holds three national reserves: Shaba and Buffalo Springs, both on the Ewaso Ng’iro north of the town, and Bisanadi on the boundary of Meru National Park. Buffalo Springs and Shaba are administered by Isiolo County and charge under the county’s own schedule rather than a Kenya Wildlife Service tariff, which is a distinction worth understanding before budgeting a northern trip.
Where Isiolo Sits on an Itinerary
Almost always in the middle. The standard northern route runs Nairobi to Nanyuki or Laikipia, then through Isiolo to Samburu and beyond. Lewa lies just off the road south of the town, with its entrance about three kilometres past the Meru and Isiolo junction. Mount Kenya is behind you.
Travellers driving themselves should plan the day around Isiolo rather than through it, since it is the last sensible place to refuel, draw cash and check a vehicle before the roads get longer and the services thin out. Anyone continuing north towards Marsabit or Lake Turkana should treat Isiolo as the genuine start of that journey.
Conditions and advice for road travel in northern Kenya change, and they differ substantially between the tarmac corridor north of Isiolo and the routes running east and west from it. Current guidance should come from a government travel advisory and from operators working the specific route, not from a destination page.
When to Go
Isiolo is low, dry and hot compared with the highland towns to the south, and the difference in the hour’s drive from Nanyuki is noticeable. The long rains around April and May and the short rains around November matter mainly for the unsurfaced roads leading off the A2, which deteriorate quickly. The dry months from June to October and January to March are when the northern circuit works best, and they are also when the pastoral movement that defines this county is most visible.
Questions Travellers Ask About Isiolo
Is Isiolo worth stopping in?
As a break, a resupply point and a look at northern Kenya’s pastoral economy, yes. As a destination in its own right, no, and it does not present itself as one. Most travellers spend an hour or two here. The ones who get the most from it are driving themselves and treat it as the practical staging post it is.
Why is there an international airport at Isiolo?
Because of the LAPSSET corridor rather than because of tourism. Isiolo is planned as the point where the Lamu Port, South Sudan and Ethiopia transport corridor divides, and the town is designated a resort city under Vision 2030. The airport was commissioned in 2017 with a stated capacity of 125,000 passengers a year. For travellers it is a useful way into and out of the northern circuit.
How far is Isiolo from Samburu National Reserve?
Isiolo is the last town before the reserve and the drive north is short by northern Kenya standards, usually under an hour and a half on tarmac to the reserve gates. Buffalo Springs sits immediately south of Samburu on the same river system, and Shaba lies east of the road. All three are county-administered rather than Kenya Wildlife Service parks.
Do I need a four-wheel drive from Isiolo?
Not for the A2 north to Marsabit or the B4 east to Meru, both of which are tarmac. Yes for the reserve tracks, the routes into the community conservancies and anything heading towards Lake Turkana or the Mathews Range. The road surface changes fast once you leave the highway, and in and after rain the unsurfaced sections deteriorate quickly.
Is Isiolo the gateway to northern Kenya?
In any practical sense, yes. It is the last full-service town before the highland economy gives way to the pastoral rangelands, it is where the road to Ethiopia begins in earnest, it has the region’s largest airport and it sits at the junction every northern route uses. The phrase is marketing language that happens to be accurate.
What languages are spoken in Isiolo?
Swahili and English as elsewhere in Kenya, alongside Borana and other Oromo varieties, Somali, Samburu, Turkana and Meru, reflecting a town that has been a meeting point for pastoral communities since its origins as a settlement for Somali soldiers after the First World War. It is one of the more linguistically mixed towns in the country.
No operator on the marketplace currently lists a safari to Isiolo.
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