Lamu Old Town: Visitor and Heritage Guide

Lamu is an island town of coral stone and carved wood on the northern Kenyan coast, some 350 kilometers up from Mombasa. It has almost no cars. It has been lived in continuously for more than seven hundred years, and that, rather than any single building, is what it is inscribed for.

History

UNESCO calls Lamu Old Town the oldest and best preserved example of Swahili settlement in East Africa, a core of buildings covering sixteen hectares that has kept both its building fabric and its social and cultural integrity. It was once the most important trade center on this coast and exercised influence across the region in religion, culture and technical expertise.

The distinction that matters is stated in the inscription itself: unlike the other Swahili settlements along the East African coast, which were abandoned, Lamu has been continuously inhabited. Gedi, a hundred and fifty kilometers down the same coast and covered elsewhere in this cluster, is what the alternative looks like.

What you will see

The town is built of coral stone and mangrove timber, and the pleasure of it is in the detail rather than the monument: inner courtyards, verandas, and the elaborately carved wooden doors that are the signature of the Swahili coast. The lanes are narrow enough that two people pass with care, and the transport is donkeys and dhows.

The public heart is Mkunguni Square and the barazas, the stone benches built into house fronts where men sit and talk. There is a museum and a fort in the town, both under the National Museums of Kenya. But Lamu is not a site you tour so much as a town you walk, and the correct pace is slow.

⚠️ The travel advisory, and the exemption

This needs stating precisely, because it is widely reported wrongly in both directions. The UK FCDO advises against all travel to Lamu County except Lamu Island and Manda Island. Lamu Old Town is on Lamu Island. The island is explicitly carved out of the advice; the mainland of the county is not.

The reason for the county-wide advice is the proximity of the Somalia border and the threat from Al Shabaab, which has carried out attacks in Lamu County, including on a military airstrip in 2020. A page that tells you Lamu is closed is wrong. A page that does not mention any of this is worse. Read the current advice before you book, because the boundaries are redrawn from time to time, and note that traveling against your own government’s advice commonly invalidates travel insurance.

Getting there

Lamu is reached by air to Manda Island, from Nairobi or Mombasa, and then by boat across the channel to the town. There is no bridge and no road onto Lamu Island itself. The overland route up the coast passes through the parts of the county the advice covers, which is the practical reason most visitors fly.

Once there, you walk, or you take a boat. Arrange your arrival transfer with your accommodation before you land: it is a boat, not a taxi, and it is much simpler booked in advance than negotiated on a jetty with luggage.