2 Days in Moshi with Kids: Kilimanjaro Hiking Adventure & Countryside Biking

Moshi, Tanzania is well known as being the gateway town to Mount Kilimanjaro. Given that a lot of adventurous travelers come through this town, it’s no surprise that there are many amazing things to do in Moshi with kids.

We visited Moshi on a family safari trip to Tanzania when our kids were 8 & 11. Despite being excellent hikers, we didn’t think they were ready to attempt a multi-day summit of Kilimanjaro, so we dedicated our two days to enjoying the best outdoor family-friendly things to do in Moshi.

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Read on to discover the fun activities we enjoyed during our two days in Moshi with kids.

Mount Kilimanjaro Day Hike With Kids

Hiking to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro has been on our bucket list for a very long time. Unfortunately, our kids were still a little too young to complete the epic multi-day hike, but we were able to find a tour which allowed us to go for a day hike on Kilimanjaro with kids.

After enjoying many sunny days in Tanzania, we woke up to rain. That’s always unfortunate on a family hiking day, but we always go anyways. More often than not, the weather turns for the better and we’re glad we went.

Our guide picked us up at our family-friendly Moshi hotel at 8:30 AM. After 45 minutes of uphill driving later, we were at the Marangu Gate at Mount Kilimanjaro National Park. The elevation here is 1,900 m (6,200 feet) above sea level.

Although we couldn’t do the multi-day hike to the summit, we were excited that our day hike on Mount Kilimanjaro allowed us to experience the first leg of the journey to the top of Africa’s highest mountain.

We weren’t on the Kilimanjaro hiking trail for more than a minute, when our daughter screamed with excitement – she spotted a small chameleon walking across the hiking trail. It was only 3 inches long, but it was undoubtedly a chameleon. Very exciting!

Our family-friendly day hike on Mount Kilimanjaro was primarily through dense rainforest. The trees were massive, covered with moss and vines hanging all over the place. There’s something special about hiking in the rain in a rainforest.

We started out hiking in t-shirts, a fleece and a rain jacket, but the hiking trail was uphill and it wasn’t too long before we started removing layers. I hiked in the rain all day in a t-shirt, and it was barely wet. Hardly any of the rain water was making it to the trail – the tree cover was capturing it all. Amazing!

After a half hour, our family hike entered the clouds. The massive rainforest trees on Kilimanjaro looked so spooky in the clouds. Despite the weather, the birds were still singing.

Once our guide figured out that we love wildlife, he was very helpful finding it for us. At almost the halfway point up to the Mandara Huts, he spotted a group of blue monkeys in the trees overhead – a species we hadn’t seen yet on our family safari trip to Tanzania.

On the second half of our family day hike on Mt. Kilimanjaro, we saw more monkeys, large snails and one of the most dense ant swarms we’ve ever seen. This mountain rainforest just teems with life.

We passed a few nice little waterfalls on the way, and our guide showed us the Kilimanjaro Impatiens flower. This beautiful flower is endemic to the slopes on Mount Kilimanjaro and has a really interesting petals which are shaped like an elephants trunk.

Speaking of fun plants, our kids found some really large vines and were able to swing on them, which they thought was really fun.

As we neared the Mandara Huts towards the end of our family day hike on Mount Kilimanjaro, the rain had slowed to a drizzle and the trees had become noticeably smaller. Over the course of 9 km (5.6 miles) of hiking to the huts, we had gained 875 m (2,900 feet) in elevation.

We began our family bike tour around Moshi by riding single file on a few busy city streets, but within minutes we were riding on a quiet residential road.

The first thing we stopped to see was a river where men were busy washing huge bags of carrots in the river water. Pretty cool!

We soon started entering the villages that surround Moshi. We love family bike tours which take you through places which are off the normal tourist trail. Everywhere we went, the locals were all smiles, waving and saying “Jambo” (hello) and “karibu” (welcome). It felt great!

We passed a brick factory in the first village. The villages are so beautiful and agricultural. Mixed in the colorful houses are beautiful gardens, with mango, guava, jackfruit, papaya and banana trees all around.

The red dirt roads through the Moshi villages were mostly traffic-free with the occasional tuk tuk or motorcycle passing by. As we passed through the countryside between villages, we could watch the corn and rice farmers hard at work.

We stopped at a local fruit stand and tried a local variety of banana which our guide recommended. It was so sweet – so much more flavorful than the bananas we get back home.

We crossed several rivers along the way, including several with meltwater from Mt. Kilimanjaro. We stopped near one bridge to admire a large tree filled with beautiful yellow weaver birds – the males hard at work making nests which they hope will impress a mate.

Next up, we rode our bikes through a massive sugarcane plantation – roughly 16,000 hectares in size! It was fun riding through a narrow path with towering sugarcane plants on both sides.

We stopped at a spot where workers were loading sugarcane onto train cars. They kindly cut a sugarcane stock off for us to try. You chew on the fibers and the most pleasant sweet juice comes out. Needless to say, our kids loved drinking pure sugar juice! The workers were very friendly and wanted pictures with us.

Then, after nearly two days of complete cloud cover, the clouds cleared and the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro suddenly appeared! We were so excited! It would have been disappointing to be so close to the highest freestanding mountain in the world and not get to see it. It was majestic!

Then, another amazing surprise! Baobab trees! These trees are pure Africa, and I never tire of seeing these “upside down trees”. You won’t believe the size of these massive, ancient trees when you stand next to the trunk of one.

As we were admiring the complete view of Mt. Kilimanjaro while riding through some corn fields, a bright yellow chameleon crossed the road!

It was around this time of day that the school bus was dropping off kids. The streets were filled with cute little kids in their school uniforms. Most of them were so happy and excited to see us, waving and practicing their English. We heard lots of “good mornings” and “how are you”. So cute!

The final leg of our Moshi Village bike tour was through the Rau forest where we saw lots of monkeys swinging in the trees. Our guide stopped at a viewing spot for the tallest and oldest tree in the reserve. It’s over 50 m tall and over 200 years old!