Recently, I attempted to solve the age-old question regarding who, between Kenya and Tanzania, owns the snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro. I quickly discovered that, like everyone else before me, I was never going to get to the bottom of this.

I did, however, hear rumours that the mountain was hived-off from Kenyan territory to Tanzania when Queen Victoria, then monarch of the United Kingdom, gave it to her grandson, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, as a birthday gift in 1886.

That is why, I discovered, there is a straight borderline all the way from Lake Victoria to the Coast that suddenly breaks into a curve exactly around where the mountain is!

The peak of Mount Kilimanjaro

Incidentally no piece of documentary evidence exists anywhere to prove this royal transaction took place and so as you would imagine, hundreds of travel agencies from either side continue to explicitly market the tropical wonder in their safaris as if it were their country’s own.

Being one not to give up too easily, I decided to look at the problem differently. I had heard that if you wanted to get fantastic views of the mountain, you would need to be on the Kenyan side. If, however, your desire was to climb the mountain, then you were better-off doing it from the Tanzanian side.

In other words, each country owned a special piece of the mountain’s legendary experience that there was just no need to fight over its ownership any more!

Snow on Mount Kilimanjaro

There is no better place on earth to experience the breathtaking views of Africa’s highest peak and the world’s highest free-standing mountain than from our very own Amboseli National Park. In equal measure, the greatest climbing moments can only best be experienced from Kilimanjaro National Park in Tanzania.

At the end of the day I was more than ready to settle for a Tanzanian climbing and a Kenyan viewing marketing pitch. So then come to Kenya for the best views of Mount Kilimanjaro!