Lodges & Camps

Inside, if the budget allows. Being inside the gate means you are on a game drive at first light rather than queuing at a barrier, and the first and last hour of the day are when nearly everything happens.

Outside is genuinely cheaper and often more comfortable for the money — the Lake Burunge properties near Tarangire and the Karatu lodges below Ngorongoro are good examples. You pay for it with roughly forty-five minutes each way.

Mobile camps pack up and relocate two or three times a year to stay with the wildebeest migration — Ndutu from roughly December to March, Kogatende from June to October. The camps in our Kogatende & Ndutu list all work this way.

For anyone travelling specifically to see the migration, yes, comfortably. A permanent lodge in the wrong part of the Serengeti in August means a three-hour drive each morning to reach the herds.

Matemwe on the north-east coast has the better swimming and the reef close in, which is why most of our beach properties are there. Jambiani on the south-east is quieter and better value, with a bigger tidal range — beautiful, but the sea goes a long way out twice a day.

Stone Town is not a swimming location. Two nights there for the history and the food, then move to a beach, is the pattern that works.

Yes. This is what we use regularly and can vouch for, not the limit of what we can arrange. If you have somewhere specific in mind — a property you have read about or stayed in before — tell us and we will price it.

We will also tell you honestly if we think it is the wrong choice for your dates, which happens most often with permanent Serengeti lodges booked during migration months.

Six to nine months for July through October and for the Christmas period. The mobile camps at Kogatende and the crater-rim lodges are the first to fill, often a year out.

For April, May and November you can book much later — three months is usually fine, and rates are considerably lower.

Usually the same or better. We hold contracted rates with most of these properties, and those are generally at or below the public rate. Where a property is cheaper booked direct we will say so.

What you gain by booking through us is that the whole chain is coordinated — transfers, park fees, flights and camps — and there is one person to call when something changes.