A three star hotel on Comboni Road, out on the ridge where Nairobi is built for cars and conference rooms. It works if you are driving your own and want free parking, quiet, and a bar downstairs. It does not work as a base for walking the centre.
01What it is
Karen Inn & Suites is a three star property on Comboni Road, in Greater Nairobi, and its list of facilities is built for the kind of stay where a car is parked outside. There is free car parking and parking, a garden, a spa, bars, coffee, a breakfast, a business center and a meeting room, plus a reception area and a 24 hour front desk. Free Wifi and free internet access in the lounge cover the practical side, and express check in and express check out exist for people who want the desk over with. The list is thin on anything to do outside the room and the bar: no restaurant is named, no gym, no pool, and the spa is listed without detail.
What that adds up to is a place organised around work and sleep rather than around the city. Karen Inn & Suites sits on the ridge side of Greater Nairobi, 11.1 km from Kenyatta Avenue at Moi Avenue, which is 139 minutes on foot in a direct line, and the street feel is new concrete built for the car and the conference room. After dark it is safe and dull: hotel bars, and a ride anywhere else. Book it if you have a car, meetings nearby, and no wish to be in the centre. Skip it if you want the Central Business District on foot.
02The supplier's photographs
0315 facilities the supplier lists
Facilities are the supplier's list, not a check made on the ground.
04Standing outside the ten quarters
These hotels are not in Upper Hill and Community, and they are not in any of the ten quarters of the centre this site covers. They sit a long way out, in the wider city, and Upper Hill and Community is only the nearest of the ten quarters to them, which is not the same as being in it. Treat the quarter as a reference point, not an address. Anything you want in the CBD means travelling in and out.
The quarter itself is the western ridge above the centre: new concrete on a ridge, built for the car and the conference room. It is not the CBD proper but the ridge immediately above it, and the place most of the CBD's office space has been moving to since the 2000s: the tallest towers in the country, the big hospitals, the aid agencies, and an expressway ramp to the airport. It is best for meetings, a quiet night close in, and a fast run to the airport, and after dark it is safe and dull: hotel bars, and a ride anywhere else. The quarter lies 1.9 km from Kenyatta Avenue at Moi Avenue, which is 24 minutes on foot in a direct line.
Read the nearest quarter, Upper Hill and Community05Booking it
Book Karen Inn & Suites directly if the Comboni Road side of Greater Nairobi is where your days are, and treat the free parking as part of what you are buying. Most rooms here can be cancelled free, and you book them through app.impt.io. Every confirmed booking removes one tonne of CO2, at no extra cost to you. Five percent of what you pay comes back as IMPT credit, out of the hotel commission rather than added to your bill.
Facts on this page come from the booking supplier's record: star class, address, photographs and facility list. Guest scores come from verified stays. Nobody from this site has stayed here; the quarter copy around it is this site's own.
06Questions
Where is Karen Inn & Suites?+
It is on Comboni Road in Greater Nairobi, on the ridge side of the city rather than inside the Central Business District. Upper Hill and Community is the nearest of the ten quarters this site covers, at 9.2 km from Upper Hill and Community, which is the nearest of the ten quarters this site covers. Plan on a vehicle for anything beyond the hotel itself.
What does the hotel list as facilities?+
Karen Inn & Suites lists free car parking and parking, a garden, a spa, bars, coffee, a breakfast, a business center and a meeting room. Free Wifi and free internet access in the lounge are there, along with a reception area, a 24 hour front desk and express check in and express check out. No restaurant, gym or pool is named.
What does getting into the centre from Greater Nairobi involve?+
The property sits 11.1 km from Kenyatta Avenue at Moi Avenue, which is 139 minutes on foot in a direct line, so walking in is not the sensible option. The street there is new concrete built for the car and the conference room, and after dark the honest description is safe and dull, with hotel bars and a ride anywhere else.
What does the 4.3 out of 5 from 261 reviews tell me?+
It is a solid mid range score from a decent number of reviews, which is what you would expect from a three star property of this kind rather than a standout result. Read it as general satisfaction with the rooms, the desk and the parking, not as a verdict on the location, which is the part that most depends on your own plans.
