When people book their first adventure with Lets Drift, one question often comes up: why matatus?
In Kenya, public transport isn’t a backup option—it’s the system that carries the country every day. Nearly 80% of people rely on PSVs to get where they need to go. When we started Lets Drift, we chose not to reinvent the wheel but to use the wheels that already work and adapt them for adventure.
Accessibility
Traditional safari-style transport can cost many times more for the same distance, and those costs eventually land on the customer. By using PSVs and cost-sharing, we’re able to keep prices realistic and open the outdoors to more people—not just a few.
Spontaneity
A large part of our community books adventures within 24 hours of the experience. Sometimes it’s Friday evening, plans change, and a hike tomorrow feels right. If everything depended on private transport booked days in advance, that door would already be closed. With PSVs and self-drive options, you can still say yes when the moment calls.
Local impact
There’s a deeper impact too. Every year, our community spends millions of shillings using local transport to access adventures. That money supports drivers, conductors, and small businesses along the way. Over time, this has built trust and goodwill in the places we explore, allowing us to adventure responsibly and respectfully.
As of 2025, over 5,000 drifters use PSV for their adventures annually, spending roughly Ksh 3 million on local transport businesses and supporting hundreds of drivers who go above and beyond to take us to the trailheads, all while experiencing an authentic local adventure using the most mainstream transport method in Kenya.
What other options are available if one does not want to use public transport?
- Self-drive—Over 80% of our trails are self-drive friendly with designated safe parking. Check out the event description to see whether a trail is self-drive friendly. We provide a pin location for all self-drive-friendly trails for ease of navigation.
- Uber/Taxi—You can hail a taxi for some of our trails, especially for all experiences in the Tigoni area, including Tigoni e-bike tours.
- Premium/Out of town—We provide private transport for all our premium/out-of-town hikes in comfortable 14-seater vans or 20-seater buses. The ticket cost is all-inclusive of the entire experience.
For us, using PSVs isn’t about compromise. It’s about flexibility, affordability, and building adventures that fit naturally into real life. Different paths lead to the same trail — and we’re happy to meet you wherever yours begins.
