Malindi is located north of Mombasa Island and can be reached by driving on the Mombasa-Malindi road. The town's history is reputed to go back a thousand years but it can only be reliably dated to the 13th century by Arabic records and dated pottery shards. Many hotels serve the town whose main beach sweeps for 7 km round Malindi Bay. The long white sandy beach to the south of Malindi town is called Silversands.

On the north side of Malindi is an extensive salt pan system for evaporating sea water for salt; an eroded wasteland of sandstone cliffs and precipices, near Marafa, known as Hell's Kitchen and a small Arabian Night's town called Mambrui complete with its Islamic and Chinese relics, and beyond that Ngomeni, a small village and harbor at the entrance to Formosa Bay.