About the reserves
Samburu, Buffalo Springs and Shaba: three reserves, two counties, no KWS
The travel trade sells this as one destination. On paper it is three separate reserves with two different owners, and the line between them runs down the Ewaso Ng'iro. Knowing which reserve you are standing in decides who you pay and how much.
If you only want the answer
Samburu National Reserve, Buffalo Springs and Shaba are three legally separate reserves under two county governments. Samburu County runs Samburu National Reserve, Isiolo County runs Buffalo Springs and Shaba, and Kenya Wildlife Service manages none of them, so KWS rates and KWS tickets do not apply here. The travel trade sells the three as one destination, so budget for paying each reserve separately and check the current position with your lodge before you go.
Three reserves, two counties
Samburu National Reserve is run by the County Government of Samburu, through its Department of Tourism, Trade, Enterprise Development and Co-operatives. Buffalo Springs National Reserve and Shaba National Reserve are both run by the County Government of Isiolo. Kenya Wildlife Service manages none of the three and collects nothing here, so KWS park rates and the KWS booking system on eCitizen have no bearing on your visit. A KWS annual card does nothing at these gates.
Each county sets its own charges in its annual Finance Act, passed by the County Assembly and published in the Kenya Gazette. For Samburu the most recent enacted rate decision is the Samburu County Finance Act 2023, assented on 6 December 2023, and the Finance Bills of 2024 and 2025 both propose exactly the same entry charges. For Isiolo the most recent complete rate table we could read is the Isiolo County Finance Bill 2023, because the County Assembly of Isiolo website has been offline for some time. Current Isiolo charges are therefore unconfirmed.
One quirk of the Isiolo legislation is worth carrying with you. Its table has no separate heading for Buffalo Springs or for Shaba. Everything sits under a single heading, Isiolo National Reserve, which is why the two are usually assumed to charge the same. The law does not say so in as many words, and it says nothing at all about whether a ticket from one is valid in the other.
The reserves also differ in size and in feel. Samburu National Reserve is given as 165 square kilometres by Wikipedia and as 104 by Expert Africa, a conflict nobody has resolved. Buffalo Springs covers 131 square kilometres on the south bank. Shaba is the largest at 239 square kilometres and was gazetted in 1974. The whole area lies between 800 and 1,230 metres.
| Reserve | Authority | Main gates |
|---|---|---|
| Samburu National Reserve | County Government of Samburu | Archer's Gate (the main entrance, about 13 km from Archer's Post), West Gate, Kalama Gate, Uaso Bridge Gate and the central airstrip gate |
| Buffalo Springs National Reserve | County Government of Isiolo | Ngare Mara Gate on the Isiolo to Archer's Post road, Chokaa Gate about two hours from Nanyuki, and Uaso Gate at the river bridge |
| Shaba National Reserve | County Government of Isiolo | Shaba Gate via Archer's Post, Natorbe Gate on the west side and Gafarsa Gate to the north |
Ngare Mara Gate, also spelled Ngaramara or Gare Mara, is a Buffalo Springs gate rather than a Samburu one, although it is often listed the other way round. Ngwesi Gate appears on some Buffalo Springs lists and we could not confirm it exists; Il Ngwesi is a separate conservancy in Laikipia.
What the split means when you arrive
The practical question is whether one ticket gets you across the bridge, and the honest answer is that nobody can point to a document. Most 2026 sources say tickets last 24 hours and apply only to the reserve named on them, so Samburu plus Buffalo Springs means two tickets and rangers check at the river crossing. Expert Africa states the opposite, that a 24-hour ticket permits visits across all three reserves in the same period. Travellers have reported driving out of Samburu through Buffalo Springs on a Samburu ticket alone.
The legislation settles none of it. Neither county's rate schedule mentions a combined ticket, a reciprocity arrangement or a drive-through rule at the bridge, and neither names the other's reserve. The amounts are different too, at USD 85 against USD 70 for a non-resident adult and KES 1,600 against KES 1,000 for a resident, and two counties with separate collection powers cannot honour each other's tickets without an explicit agreement that nobody has published. Budget for paying each reserve separately, and check with your lodge or the county before you travel. The claim that Samburu and Isiolo have fallen out over ticket reciprocity is unconfirmed; no news source supports it.
The rate decisions are equally silent on two things travellers ask about constantly. Neither one states a validity period for a personal entry ticket, so the 24-hour rule that every operator repeats has no basis in the law. Neither one defines the age at which a visitor stops being a child, so the various cut-offs quoted online, whether under 3, under 5, 3 to 11 or up to 18, have nothing behind them. The opening hours of 06:00 to 18:00 come from operators as well and appear in no rate decision.
What you can rely on is simpler. You pay the county, you are entitled to an official receipt, and you should ask for it. Samburu County runs its own collection system under the name Supa Pay, although whether it is used at the reserve gates could not be established. Reports of what the gates actually accept range from cash in dollars or shillings plus cards and M-Pesa all the way to a flat refusal of cash, and all of them come from operators without a source document. Our entry fees page carries the amounts from the legislation itself, along with the competing figures.
The Ewaso Ng'iro decides everything
This is dry country, a belt of thorn scrub between 800 and 1,230 metres, and the Ewaso Ng'iro runs through the middle of it. The river is the boundary between Samburu National Reserve on the north bank and Buffalo Springs on the south, and it is also the reason both reserves hold the game they do. In the dry season the elephants are tied to it and come down to drink and cross every day. Nile crocodiles live in it in numbers. The doum palms and thick bank vegetation along it are the best leopard habitat in the reserve, and the thornbush behind it feeds the gerenuk, which takes its water from leaves and barely drinks at all.
Away from the water the ground opens out, and the oryx and the ostrich prefer it that way. That contrast between the river strip and the open plains is the whole geography of a Samburu game drive.
The river also has a history of taking the bridge away. It flooded in March 2010 and destroyed the main bridge between Samburu and Buffalo Springs. The British Army rebuilt it between September and mid-November 2010 and it reopened officially on 25 November 2010. In 2011 it partly washed out again, forcing a 45 kilometre detour to another crossing, and it was repaired and reopened in February 2015. For 2026 the status is unconfirmed: Expert Africa describes the bridge near the reserve headquarters as reopened and in use, no source since 2015 reports another washout, and no official statement for 2025 or 2026 could be found. At least one live travel page still describes the bridge as gone, which is almost certainly the situation from 2011 to 2015 left uncorrected.
The tracks reflect the same conditions. They are graded and sandy, the luggas turn into running water after rain, and the County Government of Samburu describes its internal road network as in good to decent condition with washboard corrugations on the main routes. A 4x4 with high clearance is the sensible vehicle for all three reserves.
The conservancies around the reserves
The reserves are small and the animals do not respect the boundary, which is why the community conservancies around them keep coming up. Westgate, Kalama, Namunyak and Sera are community-owned land outside the three reserves, with their own management, their own rules and their own charges. A county entry ticket does not cover any of them, and the amounts they ask do not appear in either county's Finance Act. Samburu County licenses conservancies rather than running them, at KES 60,000 a year under the 2023 Finance Act.
Two of them are also gateways. West Gate on the western boundary of Samburu National Reserve is reached through West Gate Community Conservancy, and in practice it is used mainly by guests of Sasaab Lodge. Kalama Gate lies 8 kilometres past Archer's Post off the A2, then 12 kilometres of main sand road, sitting 7 kilometres north of the reserve boundary inside Kalama Community Conservancy, which also has its own airstrip at the conservancy headquarters. Namunyak and Sera lie further out in the same landscape, and we have no verified figures for either to publish here.
For two species the conservancies are the whole story. Less than 0.5 per cent of the Grevy's zebra range lies inside protected areas anywhere, so the species survives on community conservancies and ordinary community land. African wild dogs range over enormous distances and spend most of their time on community ground outside the reserve, which is where the vaccination work and the community programmes that rebuilt the population have been done.
What you will actually pay
For Samburu National Reserve the Finance Act 2023 sets a non-resident adult at USD 85 and a non-resident child at USD 50, with KES 1,600 for a resident adult and KES 800 for a resident child or student. The Finance Bills of 2024 and 2025 propose the same amounts, so these figures have stood since the 2023/24 financial year. The Act also charges KES 800 for a vehicle under 6 seats and KES 1,600 for 6 to 12 seats, with nothing at all listed for vehicles between 13 and 23 seats.
For Buffalo Springs and Shaba the Isiolo County Finance Bill 2023 sets a non-resident adult at USD 70 and a non-resident child at USD 40, with KES 1,000 for a resident adult and KES 500 for a citizen. Vehicles run at KES 500 under 6 seats and KES 1,000 for 6 to 12. That document is from 2023 and an increase since then cannot be ruled out.
No document exists carrying 2026 rates for any of the three reserves. Any page claiming 2026 prices has no public source for them.
Sources
- Samburu County Finance Act 2023 (No. 4 of 2023), First Schedule
- Samburu County Finance Bill 2025
- Isiolo County Finance Bill 2023, Part III (Internet Archive copy)
- County Government of Samburu: tourist attraction sites
- Expert Africa: Samburu National Reserve
- Ewaso Lions: the Ewaso Ng'iro bridge reopening (December 2010)