18 Dec2025
I have to be honest and speak about all the bad experiences I had in Watamu, Kenya. I cannot pretend that nothing bad happened there because for me it was NOT easy having to deal with all those things there ALONE.
While spending 2 months in Watamu, Kenya from mid-September to mid-November 2024, I was unlucky to experience loads of situations that didn’t seem good to me. I ran into way too many people there who, in my opinion, were not professional enough, and unfortunately in many cases, not human enough either to do the right thing. To do what they promised. To do what should be done. To treat others the way they should be treated.
If I’d only known about how all those people and companies truly are before, I would have saved a lot of my energy, time, nerves and sometimes also money.
That’s one of the reasons why I decided to share all this online. If it helps at least one person to avoid all the trouble I had to go through, then having written this post was worth it.
I spoke to all the people in this article first. I tried to solve the situation with them first. Nothing has improved which is why I decided to post about it here on my blog.
I just wish the people/brands I’m mentioning in this article learned from their wrong attitude now once I made it public. I wish they realized they can do better. I wish they realized what they can improve instead of treating others badly.
But to be honest, I doubt that. I think they’d get angry with me for sharing all that publicly.
Let’s see… their reaction is about their level of maturity.
For me, it’s all about honesty.
Honesty is the best policy…
Yes, of course I’ve had some bad experiences also in other countries but never that many in one place like in Watamu, Kenya. Frankly, counting all the bad situations I had to go through when traveling around the world since 2009, yes altogether, would be less than those I had in Watamu only.
In my opinion, people should know who to avoid when they visit Watamu, Kenya. So yes, this is a list of people and companies who NOT to trust, NOT to go on tours with, where NOT to stay, who NOT to give your money to etc…
You’ve been warned.
Unprofessional companies in Watamu Kenya – my bad experiences (8)
Watamu Kenya – bad experiences
AfricaNomads coworking
It all started with my stay at AfricaNomads coworking in Watamu. I wrote an entire article about it, in detail. So here just a very brief version.
We had a collaboration with AfricaNomads. They were providing some things for me, mostly accommodation in Watamu at Casa Corra hotel. Unfortunately, they were extremely noisy, playing loud music both during the day and at night, drinking alcohol and smoking. Yes, at the coworking hotel where people were staying to work online.
I had asked about silence/noise before we made a collab deal. And I do NOT drink nor smoke.
Not sure why they thought it was fine but I personally cannot work in noise. And sleeping in loud music is not possible for me, either.
Once I told Alejandra Wolf, the main owner of AfricaNomads, that it was not ok they were shouting in the middle of the night outside of my room, the whole situation changed drastically. She was not nice to me any more.
Long story short, she pretty much said it was my fault that I didn’t like the loud music and them drinking and having parties.
According to her, it was my fault I did not expect a 24/7 disco at a coworking/coliving hotel. I mean, seriously?!
Till this day I still can’t understand how she could behave like this when we had a collaboration. I was there to promote her company. And she did not care at all. Alcohol, screaming and smoking was more important to her than their guests.
I had to leave the AfricaNomads coliving on short notice and find a different accommodation. They simply refused to keep their part of the deal even when I was still keeping mine.
where AfricaNomads coliving was – unprofessional companies in Watamu Kenya
Casa Corra in Watamu
The hotel where the AfricaNomads coworking took place was Casa Corra. When that situation happened with AfricaNomads owners, the hotel manager himself told me he wanted to help me and I could change to a different room further from the coworking people.
Basically, my room was paid for already in the other part of the hotel for the next 2 weeks by AfricaNomads (they paid for the half of the hotel without paying anything extra for the room I was staying at before). So to the hotel it did not matter in which room I stayed at. It was already paid for.
So it was a bit of a shock to see that the hotel manager Peter Karisa came to me after 2 nights there and charged me the usual room price. He had never mentioned anything about paying before. All he said was that he wanted to help me as he didn’t agree with the behavior of AfricaNomads either.
And it was Peter’s idea for me to stay in a different room at the same hotel, not mine. He came up with it.
I really thought he was a nice person and even becoming a friend of mine, but I quickly realized that…
in Kenya everything is about money (or s€x, or both).
In Watamu Kenya, unfortunately, even the words ”I want to HELP you” mean ”but you still have to pay for it”.
Not sure if Peter had to charge me because of the hotel owner or he changed his mind because I refused to go out with him. But it was rather disappointing to see the lack of human approach in that non-standard situation. Especially when it was his idea for me to change the room.
As I didn’t like it, I moved out to a different hotel because internet at Casa Corra traditional house room where I was staying was not working anyway. And at the same time I really wanted to be far from the noisy AfricaNomads and the whole hotel area.
discussing AfricaNomads situation with Peter Karisa
Beach boy
Unfortunately, there’s many guys on the Watamu beaches who are harassing the tourists all the time. It’s so disturbing!
Beach boys is the name given to local boys/men who spend their time on the beach, following tourists and trying to sell them something, just anything – tours, souvenirs or their body and time.
I wanted to be alone on the beach but several beach boys kept coming to me. One of them was just too much. He kept disturbing me over and over again almost every day on the 7 islands beach in Watamu, Kenya. I told him to leave me alone so many times. He didn’t want to listen.
Then one day I had enough of him, packed my stuff and was about to leave the beach. He decided to walk from the beach towards the main road at the same time via the public path I was also going to take at first. So I walked through the nearby restaurant instead hoping he’d change his mind and go back to the beach when he didn’t see me behind him.
Then I crossed the main road and took a short cut towards the hotel. But he appeared right there on a motorbike, even more rude and scary than before. I did not know what to do. It was just me, him and bushes around us.
I shouted at him, threatened with tourist police… but he kept following me even further and laughing like crazy with a very weird look in his eyes (he might be even on drugs), so I stopped, and without thinking I slapped his face 3 times but that did not help either (it was my first time ever to slap a stranger). No, I am not proud of doing so but it was just a reflex out of fear.
He kept following me from the beach towards my hotel but, obviously, I really did not want him to know exactly where I was staying. I grabbed a big rock from the ground and told him I’d smash both his motorbike and him if he didn’t leave. He did not anyway, just sped up to be a few metres in front of me.
Thankfully at that time a young local guy appeared from between the bushes. I told him in English to tell the beach boy to stop following me because I was going to call the police. That young guy looked scared. Not sure what he understood from what I said, and I have no idea what he shouted then at that beach boy in Swahili, but that one sentence of his finally worked and the annoying beach boy left on the motorbike.
I got to the hotel shaking and then I avoided the very same beach for the next 2 days.
Once I found the courage to go back to the beach, the beach boy pretended he didn’t see me. Every day after that he would just walk around me not talking to me any more. And when he spotted me, he would walk further from me. Thank God!
I guess I was lucky.
I don’t know the name of the beach boy but he was always on the beach next to Papa Remo. He was the only one out of all the beach boys there wearing camouflage clothing, a bit muscular with messy hair approx 15 cm long sticking to all sides, and a very arrogant look on his face.
where I had a bad experience with a beach boy in Watamu Kenya
Kelvin at Casa Corra
Kelvin, a short young skinny local guy, worked at Casa Corra hotel. He seemed very kind and humble while I was staying at the hotel and besides “hey, how are you?” he barely talked to me. He asked for my whatsapp number to send me the contact of Jonathan, a friend of his, who could help me with looking for further accommodation and tours.
But then Kelvin texted me to buy him dinner for giving me Jonathan’s number. It didn’t seem very nice but I thought that the weird way he said it was just due to his poor English. So I agreed. It seemed fair to me to say thanks to him somehow.
However, later Kelvin requested the most expensive dinner in town which he didn’t have money for (pizza or burger), of course. And he kept texting me every day about it. Do you think I still found it cool?
Then Kelvin sent me a message asking me to give him some money. And that was it for me. I don’t like not keeping my word but I didn’t like that Kelvin tried to use me.
Unfortunately, many Kenyans see white people as walking ATMs.
Casa Corra traditional house where I stayed
Jonathan from Kinglee safaris travels
I had a collaboration with a local tour guide Jonathan from Kinglees travels. Yes, Kelvin’s friend. Jonathan was so lovely at first: responsible, on time, and unlikely to many other local tour guides he was not smoking nor drinking alcohol in front of me, such a nice guy, really.
I treated Jonathan as my friend. He took me on a couple of tours around Watamu and even helped me to get a new accommodation at Rafiki Village via his friend.
Of course Jonathan got commissions from what I paid at the Rafiki Village hotel as he was the one who brought me there. And he was also supposed to take me on many tours for free to promote his company. It was a barter collaboration because I knew it was still off season and he didn’t earn much in that time of the year to pay me for my services on top of free tours. And I truly wanted to help him to get more customers.
After the very easy beginning of our collaboration which made me super happy, he changed his attitude completely. I still don’t understand why… Long story short, Jonathan made me wait for like 3 weeks always just telling me that he would take me on other tours later but he just never did.
There were still 3 tours he promised to take me on (we agreed on them straight in the beginning of our collaboration). It was 3 very important tours to places I really wanted to see.
However, Jonathan did not keep his word. And he did not even after I’d given him so much more promotion on IG and FB stories than I should have. I tend to overdeliver when the things are right (and they initially were).
Then Jonathan even lied to me many times about talking to the hotel staff about what I asked him to do (I asked several hotel staff members separately and they all told me he never talked to any of them so I started to trust them instead and not Jonathan any more).
He lied about some other things as well (I had a clear online proof that he did). It was very disappointing and not only because I never managed to go on tours I truly wanted to.
In the end, we sent some unpleasant messages to each other and ended on bad terms. Jonathan never took me on the remaining 3 tours as initially promised.
Such a shame because Jonathan could be both a really great person and tour guide. If he only tried to do better.
with Jonathan Kinglee safaris
Watamu dreams and Rafiki Village
I spent a month staying at the private Samawati house at Rafiki Village hotel in Watamu. It was organized via Jonathan’s Italian friend Giorgio who owns Watamu dreams company and the villa I was staying at. I was very happy to be able to check into the villa very last minute and also grateful for a better price (as I was alone and it was off season).
However, before my stay I asked both Jonathan and Giorgio if the villa was really quiet. I asked several times! They both promised me many times it so was. Unfortunately, it turned out they just wanted me to stay there so they would both earn money for my stay.
Despite of their promises, the villa where I was staying turned out to be extremely noisy. I could hear loud music from the nearby bar almost every night, sometimes until early morning. And there were kids shouting like crazy at a local school right behind the villa.
And of course both Giorgio and Jonathan knew both about the bar and the school as they’ve existed there for a long time. It was nothing that just appeared out of the blue during my stay. So they both just lied to me about the villa being very quiet.
For some people it’s not a big deal but I can’t work in noise during the day, and I can’t sleep in noise at night. Silence is a must for me.
And on top of that, because the hotel was usually rather empty (there were other villas around mine which belonged to the same hotel but different owners), the hotel staff just didn’t seem to care enough. They would play music and watch videos on their phones while walking around the hotel during the day up to 1 am, shouting at each other from one side of the hotel to the other as if it was their home and not a hotel where they were working.
Simply put, the Rafiki Village hotel staff did not have enough respect towards the hotel guests, if any at all.
The hotel staff were loud even when they saw me on my laptop there at my villa terrace trying to get some online things done. I had to ask them over and over to be more quiet because I could hear them even with noise-cancelling headphones with focus music on.
The noisy staff was very disturbing and completely avoidable, if they only cared. They were nice people otherwise, I did like many of them; except the noise. And yes, of course, I did ask them to be more quiet MANY times on a daily basis. But it’s something they should know by themselves in the first place.
Unfortunately, there were more problems there at the Rafiki village hotel but I just kept hoping it would all improve. And I truly didn’t want to lose even more money and waste more time while looking for another place. So I just stayed there… praying for improvements.
And Giorgio, the villa owner promised me to come for a private yoga class as he had back pain (I am a certified yoga teacher). He just kept promising tomorrow and tomorrow. I even spent time preparing for the class and stayed at the villa a few times waiting for him but he never kept his word about coming to the yoga class so my time was never paid for.
Giorgio never even texted me ahead of time that he was not coming so I could change my plans accordingly. I understood he was busy, but I was not his employee. To me, his attitude was absolutely unacceptable.
Rafiki Village – Unprofessional companies in Watamu Kenya – my bad experiences
Giorgio was also supposed to come over to talk about our possible collaboration but all the time he just said he was busy and he would come tomorrow. He never came.
And when I fell down and got injured at the Rafiki Village hotel and texted Giorgio that I couldn’t find any first aid kid in the Samawati villa, he just replied that maybe someone had stolen it (unprofessional attitude) and asked me if I needed to go to a doctor.
Once I said no, he never even checked on me after that. No more replies from him, never sent any first aid kid to me, never asked the hotel staff to help me somehow (inhuman attitude). For the record, I could barely walk the first few days when my toe was deeply cut and I had bruises and scratches on several body parts.
I just do not like it when people don’t behave like humans, when they do not keep their word and when they lie. In my opinion it is very wrong to choose money & business over human approach. And that’s exactly what Giorgio was doing.
1 of the injuries – Unprofessional companies in Watamu Kenya – my bad experiences
Massages at Rafiki Village
While staying at Samawati villa at Rafiki Village mentioned above, I also asked for a massage. A woman called Brenda was sent. She didn’t know what she was doing and pressed hard directly on my spine multiple times until I told her not to do that as she could seriously hurt me.
Only days later I noticed that Brenda was not a professional masseuse but she was a cleaning lady at the hotel taking care of one of the private villas. Shocking! I had no idea. And she was also one of the loudest staff members at the hotel, always shouting on her phone not caring about the hotel guests at all.
I understand that Brenda wanted to earn more money (for the massage) but excuse me?! You cannot send a cleaning lady who knows nothing about body to do massages. She could have caused me huge health problems!
A few days later I asked if they had a professional masseuse they could send instead. A different woman named Riziki arrived. The massage was fine, better for sure than the previous one, but she came late and finished earlier. In the end, the massage was only 40 minutes even though I paid for 60 minutes. And once I told her about it, she just said a simple ”sorry” with a smile on her face and left. Unprofessional!
And then Riziki even kept texting me for a month if I wanted another massage.
NO, thank you!
the massage bed at Rafiki Village
Companies to avoid in Watamu Kenya recap
It was rather painful having to relive all these bad experiences in Watamu when writing this blog post. But it had to be done not only for my own healing so I can move forward.
I usually don’t write much about the bad things that happen to me while traveling (I do in IG and FB stories though but not on this blog). However, the situations in Watamu were just too much to handle. I do feel that all the bad experiences in Watamu Kenya have to be clearly mentioned here on the blog.
Unfortunately, many companies rely on clients never speaking up if they are treated badly or something goes wrong. But that is so NOT ok!
We need to be honest and authentic.
Yes, of course, something small can happen unexpectedly but it’s all about the way how the client is treated afterwards. It’s about how many things go wrong. And how the companies deal with the negative situation.
This is just the first half of my bad experiences in Watamu Kenya. Yes, there’s a second article coming.
It took me approx. one week to write this post. No kidding. So hopefully some people will learn something good from all that.
Posted in Africa, bad experience, Kenya, personal, solo female, tips, travel Tags: Africa, bad experiences, Kenya, solo travel
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