A Kenya Road Trip with Google Maps, My Maps and Earth

Leah and Wambui are fictional, and so is what happens to them, such as the import error, the walk and the missing review: those scenes show when each guide helps. The places are real. The routes, notices and screens shown here were checked on 3 November 2026: routes in Google Maps on a computer (signed out, driving, “Leave now”), and the equator in Google Earth on the web. Travel times change with traffic, so treat ours as an example, not a forecast.

The trip at a glance

1. Two weeks out: one plan, three tools

Wambui lives in Nairobi; Leah is flying in. Their first video call ends with a rule: Google Maps for getting from A to B, a shared My Maps map for the plan, and Google Earth for looking at places before they get there. Our Google Maps vs My Maps vs Earth comparison explains why each tool gets one job, and our road trip planning guide covers the order to do things in.

Wambui types their shortlist into a Google Sheet: lodge, viewpoints, a fuel stop, the beach house. She gives each row a name and a place column, the way our CSV import guide suggests, and imports it into a new My Maps map.

In our story, Leah tries the same import on her laptop and gets “Anonymous uploads are not allowed.” Our My Maps import guide starts with the account and Drive checks to try first; Google hasn’t confirmed one cause. Our error messages reference shows the wording we found for this message in English, Spanish and French. Leah stops fighting it: Wambui owns the map and shares it with her as an editor.

2. What works in Kenya, and what doesn’t

Leah expects the 3D driving view she uses at home. Our feature availability table says Immersive Navigation started in the US in March 2026, and Google hasn’t named any other country, so she shouldn’t expect it in Kenya.

Other features are less clear-cut. Ask Maps began in the US and India and, since 6 August 2026, has been rolling out in English to many more countries, so Wambui checks her own phone rather than assuming. Speed limits only appear where Google has speed-limit data, which is worth knowing before Leah relies on the speedometer. The rental car has CarPlay, so Leah reads how Gemini works in Google Maps on CarPlay and how to search for stops the normal way if the button isn’t there.

3. Landing: the Expressway question

Leah lands at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. In Google Maps, the fastest route to Westlands runs along the Nairobi Expressway, and the route card says “This route has tolls.”

The Expressway runs 27.1 km between Mlolongo and the James Gichuru Road junction. TollGuru’s August 2026 guide lists an electronic tag, a prepaid toll card, M-Pesa at manual lanes and cash in Kenyan shillings only. Leah’s foreign cash wouldn’t work.

To compare, Wambui opens Options and, under Avoid, ticks Tolls. The route switches to Mombasa Road: almost the same distance, but about 43 minutes instead of 27 when we checked. Our avoid tolls, highways and ferries guide explains what each option does and why you should still check the route it picks. They take the Expressway and pay with Wambui’s prepaid toll card.

At the guesthouse, the taxi pin is on the wrong side of the block. Wambui drops a precise pin on the gate and sends it to Leah, and our wrong address guide shows how to report the entrance properly instead of just complaining to the driver.

4. North on the A2: crossing the equator

The next morning they drive 194 km north on the A2 to Nanyuki. Wikipedia notes that the equator passes through the southern part of town and that there’s an equator sign beside the A2.

Google Maps doesn’t draw the equator. Google Earth does. Leah opens Earth on the web, searches for Nanyuki and turns on gridlines, as our equator guide describes. A thick yellow line, the equator, crosses the satellite image just south of the town label.

Leah wants the exact numbers for her photo caption. Our Google Earth coordinates guide shows where Earth displays latitude and longitude, and our Google Maps coordinates guide shows how to copy a pair from Maps so it pastes back in the right order.

Wambui wants to know how old the picture of the equator sign is before they rely on it to find a parking spot. Our Street View date guide shows where the capture date sits. When a Street View panel won’t open on the lodge’s slow Wi-Fi, our Street View not working guide separates “no coverage here” from a loading problem.

Is a Street View car coming to Nanyuki? Google’s schedule page listed Kenya when we checked, but only Nairobi-area districts: Kajiado East, Kajiado South, Kajiado West, Kikuyu, Langata and Dagoretti North in February 2026, and Embakasi East and Roysambu from February to March 2026. Those windows had already passed, and nothing was listed for Laikipia or the coast. Our Street View car schedule guide explains how to read that list without expecting a fixed date.

5. A day on foot near Mount Kenya

Nanyuki sits northwest of Mount Kenya. In our story, the friends join a guided walk in the foothills, and Leah records it on her watch as a GPX file. That evening she imports the GPX with My Maps so the track sits on the shared trip map, then opens the same file in Google Earth Pro and draws an elevation profile to see where the climb really started.

Wambui measures the distance from the lodge to the trailhead in Earth and notices the satellite imagery up the slopes is soft. Our blurry Earth guide helps her tell low-resolution imagery from a loading fault. Our imagery updates guide explains why there’s no date for a sharper picture, and our historical imagery guide shows older views.

6. The long drive south

Nanyuki to Mombasa is 683 km in Google Maps: about 11 hours 55 minutes when we checked, via Mombasa Road/A109. Nobody wants that in one go. Wambui adds a stop for the night along Mombasa Road and enters the stops in the order they’ll drive them, because Maps follows the order you enter rather than reordering them for you.

Before they leave Wi-Fi, Leah downloads offline maps for every stretch, not just the endpoints, because a gap in the middle is exactly where signal drops. As a backup she also installs Organic Maps. Wambui checks the weather along the route for the hours they’ll actually be on each section.

On the road, Wambui shares her live location with her sister for the day, with an end time. When Maps keeps suggesting a new route through a town, Leah checks our rerouting guide: is the blue dot jumping, or is Maps really changing roads? When the voice suddenly sounds different after a phone update, our voice changed guide points her to the language settings.

7. Mombasa to Diani: the ferry or the bypass

From Fort Jesus in Mombasa to Diani Beach, the fastest route in Google Maps was 29.6 km and about 1 hour 4 minutes along the A14, with a warning on the route card: “This route includes a ferry.”

That ferry is the Likoni crossing over Kilindini Harbour between Mombasa Island and Likoni, run by Kenya Ferry Services. Foot passengers ride free and vehicles pay. Leah isn’t sure the warning is a problem, so she looks it up in our error messages reference. It isn’t an error: the suggested route uses a boat.

With a rental car, they’d rather drive round. Wambui opens Options and, under Avoid, ticks Ferries. Maps switches to the Dongo Kundu Bypass: 54.9 km and about 1 hour 19 minutes, almost twice the distance but no boat.

Our avoid ferries guide explains that “Avoid ferries” only asks for a route without a boat crossing where one exists. It doesn’t change the ferry’s schedule or queue. On the way back, with time to spare, they take the ferry on foot to see it.

8. Home again: keep the map, trim the trail

Back in Nairobi, Leah wants the trip in one file. Wambui exports the My Maps map as KML, and Leah opens it in Google Earth as a project. She adds the lodge and the walk, then saves a KMZ, following our create KML or KMZ guide. Our Earth web vs Pro vs mobile guide helps her decide where to keep it. For fun she tries the flight simulator over the coast.

Then the privacy pass. Leah reviews her Timeline with our Timeline visualizer guide and decides which visits to keep, then uses our location history guide to set auto-delete. She clears the searches she doesn’t need with our search history guide and runs through the rest of our privacy checklist.

Finally, reviews. Leah writes one for the lodge, and a day later can’t see it. Our review not showing guide shows how to check its status before changing anything, because deleting and reposting can cancel an appeal.

Try this trip yourself

• Before you go: put your stops in one shared My Maps map; check the feature availability table for your country.
• Tolls: expect “This route has tolls” on the Nairobi Expressway; use Options → Avoid → Tolls to compare Mombasa Road, and carry a payment method the toll plaza accepts.
• The equator: use Google Earth gridlines; Google Maps has no equator line.
• No signal: download offline maps for the whole route, plus a second offline app.
• The coast: from Fort Jesus to Diani, “This route includes a ferry” meant the Likoni ferry; Avoid ferries sent us over the Dongo Kundu Bypass.

More trip and map ideas are in our useful Google Maps features roundup and our other story, A Family Weekend with Google Maps, My Maps and Earth.