Kenya's finest beach — three kilometres of Indian Ocean perfection south of Mombasa
Diani Beach is a 17-kilometre stretch of white coral sand and clear Indian Ocean water on the southern Kenyan coast, consistently voted one of Africa's best beaches. The beach is backed by a narrow coastal forest that shelters Angola colobus monkeys — large black-and-white primates that raid hotel gardens and cross the main coast road (the Colobus Conservation charity operates rope bridges across the road to reduce roadkill). The water is warm year-round, the reef offshore provides snorkelling and diving, and kite-surfing is well-established at the southern end. The Diani-Ukunda strip of hote…
The southern Kenyan coast was part of the Swahili coast trading network dominated by Arab and Persian merchants for a millennium before Portuguese arrival in 1498. Diani was a predominantly Digo (Mijikenda people) area used for fishing and small-scale agriculture until the British colonial government opened it to tourism development after WWII. The first hotels appeared in the 1960s; the coastal road was paved in the 1970s. The colobus monkey conservation programme was established in the 1990s in response to accelerating forest loss and road casualties.