President Obama Wants to Climb Kilimanjaro

President Barack Obama said Sunday that climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, a safari in the Masai Mara and a beach holiday in Lamu were all on his bucket list for after his presidency.

“I know that there are places in this beautiful nation that I haven’t discovered, so I am gonna make sure when I get back, and it is not just Kenya, it is an ecosystem connected from Uganda to Tanzania,” he told Kenya’s CapitalFM in an interview marking the end of his Kenya visit.

“Climbing Kilimanjaro seems like something that should be on my list of things to do once I get out of here. The Secret Service generally doesn’t like me climbing mountains, but as a private citizen hopefully I can get away with something like that.”

The 5,895-metre (19,341-foot) peak, just over the border in Tanzania, is Africa’s highest mountain.

He said he loved the Masai Mara and Serengeti national parks in Kenya and Tanzania, and had fond memories of a trip to Lamu island, on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast, that he made with his wife Michelle when they were engaged.

“Lamu is high on my list. Michelle and I went there when we were engaged, I remember taking those dhows out, fishing, and the captain of the boat cooking the fish right on the beach. It was remarkable,” he told CapitalFM