Kenya · Uasin Gishu
Where to Stay in Eldoret, Uasin Gishu
Eldoret is a city of the western highlands of Kenya, a cool farming town on the Rift Valley plateau, famed as the training country of the world's great runners.
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Where to stay in Eldoret
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
The choice in Eldoret runs between the town centre and the farmland around it. The centre keeps the markets, the cafés, and the university within a walk, and staying downtown suits anyone here for the city. High open country reaches out on every side of the town.
Runners pass at first light. Out toward the farms and the Rift, the town gives way to the wheat fields, the training camps, and the road down to the valley. A room out of the centre trades the streets for the wide fields, the cool air, and the great escarpment of the Rift.
The plateau runs green for miles. Stay downtown for the city, or out for the country. The high plateau and the running roads hold the highland city.
About Eldoret
Eldoret is the highland city of western Kenya.
What is Eldoret known for?
On the high Uasin Gishu plateau above the Rift Valley, it grew as a farm and market town, and it keeps the wide wheat and maize fields of the plateau, the training tracks of the champion runners, the cool clear air of the highlands, and the road to the Rift and its lakes. The green plateau runs to the sky. Runners train on the high roads.
What are the main landmarks in Eldoret?
The running country is the pride of Eldoret. The high roads and tracks where the champions train, known across the world of sport, are the emblem of the town, out of downtown. Wheat rolls to the sky.
The great grain fields of the plateau spread around the town nearby, while the highland farms, the Rift escarpment, and the Nandi hills mark the country around Eldoret.
What is the history of Eldoret?
Eldoret grew as a settler farm town. In colonial days farmers came to the cool high plateau to grow wheat and raise cattle, and a market town rose on the railway. The plateau bred great runners.
The Kalenjin people of these highlands took to distance running, and from the hills around Eldoret came Olympic and world champions by the score. A running mecca grew here. Runners came from across the world to train in the thin high air near Eldoret, and the roads filled with them at dawn.
The farms fed the country. On the rich plateau the fields of wheat and maize made this a breadbasket of Kenya, and Eldoret grew as the city of the western highlands, keeping its farms, its tracks, and its cool air. The runners still work the high roads.
Eldoret keeps its highland city above the Rift.
Where is Eldoret?
Eldoret lies in the west of Kenya, high on the Uasin Gishu plateau. The city sits on the rolling grassland at over two thousand metres, near the western wall of the Great Rift Valley, in a cool green upland, with the Nandi hills falling away to the south and the Rift dropping to lakes in the east. The high plateau rolls green and wide.
Cool air fills the year.
What is the climate of Eldoret?
Eldoret has a cool, mild highland climate. Spring-like weather holds all year on the plateau, with warm days, cold nights, and long rains through the middle of the year. The days stay mild and green.
Nights turn cold and clear.
How do you get to Eldoret?
Eldoret lies in the west of Kenya, high on the road to Uganda. The highway and the railway run to it from Nairobi and the Rift, and an airport serves the plateau. Roads climb the highlands.
Nairobi lies southeast down the road.
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Updated August 2026