Out of Africa: Karen Blixen's Kenya

Out of Africa opens on a train. Karen is travelling to Nairobi in 1913 when Denys Finch Hatton stops the carriage and entrusts her with his ivory; Farah meets her at the station. The production's steam locomotive came from the Nairobi Railway Museum — display engine 301, listed among its exhibits. The museum opened in 1971 beside the city's railway station and holds East African Railways locomotives and coaches. The working steam engines are kept under cover and can be seen by appointment.

Visitor guidance: Beside Nairobi railway station; the working steam locomotives need an appointment.

Farah escorts Karen from the station to the Muthaiga Club to meet her future husband, but the Somali headman is stopped at the door of the men-only establishment. It is a sharp introduction to colonial Nairobi, and the film returns to the club at the end, when the members who once barred Farah invite Karen into the men-only salon for a toast. The club opened on New Year's Eve in 1913, the season Karen arrived, and is still a country club in the suburb of Muthaiga.

Karen and Bror buy the Mbogani coffee farm near the Ngong Hills in 1916, and the house becomes the centre of the film: Karen runs the farm, founds a school for the Kikuyu workers, helps with their medical needs and settles their disputes. The bungalow, built in 1912 by the Swedish engineer Åke Sjögren, is now the Karen Blixen Museum, opened in 1986 after the film's success. The production did not film inside it. The suburb of Karen, created by the land re-parceling of the coffee farm, now surrounds the museum.

Visitor guidance: The museum is 10 km outside Nairobi, in the suburb of Karen.

When Karen contracts syphilis from Bror, she goes back to Denmark for treatment while he runs the farm. The film shoots that Danish interlude not in Denmark but at Castle Rising, a Norfolk village whose ruined medieval castle was adapted to look like a Danish counterpart. It is a quiet passage: Karen recovers, returns to Africa and finds the marriage effectively over. The castle, built soon after 1138, is still operated as a tourist attraction, and the village stands near King's Lynn.

Visitor guidance: Castle Rising is near King's Lynn in Norfolk; the castle is open as a tourist attraction.

The film quotes Blixen's line — "I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills" — and the ridge is the story's horizon. The four peaks appear behind Karen's house in several scenes, and Denys buys a Gipsy Moth biplane and often takes her flying. The highest peak reaches 2,460 m. A walking trail runs along the tops, Kenya Forest Service guides are available for a fee, and the western slopes drop more than 1,000 m into the Great Rift Valley.

Location precision: The ridge runs for kilometres; the pin is Wikipedia's point for the hills, not a filmed spot.

Visitor guidance: A trail runs along the tops; guides from the Kenya Forest Service post at the north-east foot charge a fee.

The real Ngong Hills were not picturesque enough, so the production used the Chyulu Hills for the hill country around Karen's farm. On screen this volcanic range in Makueni County becomes the ridge above the farmhouse. It runs about 100 km northwest to southeast, its highest peak at 2,188 m, and forms part of the Tsavo conservation area. Leviathan Cave, also called Kisula, is roughly 11 km long, one of Africa's longest; the national park's main gate is at Kibwezi.

Location precision: The range runs about 100 km; the pin is Wikipedia's point for the hills, not a filmed spot.

Visitor guidance: The national park's main gate is at Kibwezi in Makueni County.

On the morning of 14 May 1931, Denys Finch Hatton took off from Voi in his Gipsy Moth, circled the airfield twice and plunged to the ground in flames. He and his Kikuyu servant Kamau were killed. In the film Bror brings Karen the news that the plane has crashed in Tsavo. The real Voi airfield lies just beyond the western edge of Tsavo East National Park; there are no regular scheduled flights today, so the place is a map stop rather than a visit.

Karen Blixen chose this burial place herself: a spot on the first ridge of the Ngong Hills that she had once pointed out to Denys as her own future grave. After the crash he was buried there, and his brother, the 14th Earl of Winchilsea, raised an obelisk with a line from Coleridge: "He prayeth well, who loveth well both man and bird and beast." In the film Karen recites a Housman poem at the funeral, and Farah writes that a pair of lions often visits the grave. The obelisk and garden overlook Nairobi National Park.

Visitor guidance: On the eastern slopes of the Ngong Hills, overlooking Nairobi National Park.