There is an expectation about African safari travel that tends to afflict the uninitiated, who picture camping in the Serengeti as a tent pitched under a spreading Acacia tree and a smoldering camp fire besides which a reflective hunter cleans his rifle.
No such thing. A tented camp in the Serengeti these days has more in common with fine dining and interior décor than rough travel. Since the days of Empire rough travel in Africa has become increasingly refined , and in an industry that is becoming increasingly competitive continent wide, this is something that Tanzania in particular does extremely well indeed.
The Serengeti is one of the most iconic names in African eco-travel. It is one of the most visited national parks in Africa, and one of the best preserved and most definable wilderness areas in the world. It hosts such phenomenon as the annual migration that sees millions of animals travel south along the Western Corridor from Kenya through to the plains of southern Serengeti. Despite the thousands of visitors that flock to the park annually there remains an air in the Serengeti of isolation, of infinite space and unlimited resource. It is a vast area, so much more than the signature plains, and in fact it encompasses almost every variant of African bushveld habitat from rolling hill country in the south, through the vast plains, to the arid Acacia woodland and savannah in the north.
Travel to and through the Serengeti is relatively easy. You can fly in from Arusha to the Seronera airstrip, from where a dozen or more tented camps and lodges await. You can also drive in from the south through the Ngorongoro Crater Reserve, or south from Kenya or Lake Victoria. The park is offered as part of a million itineraries, and served by hundreds of tour operators.
There are two extremes of accommodation available to visitors to the Serengeti National Park. The cheapest and most accessible is rough camping, and rough is the word. The TANAPA campsites in Serengeti are basic at best and ramshackle and unkempt at worst. This is mass tourisim on an African scale, with hundreds of safari Landcruisers packed into the campsites and tourists shuttled through with a minimum of care and even less interest. At the other extreme is to be found a hospitality industry offering world class standards, and for a price, levels of comfort that hardly seem appropriate in the African wilderness.
Lodges and tented camps have long been a mainstay of the African travel industry. The trend began in the 19th century with the high expectations of British aristocrats roughing it in the bush, but soon it became an expression of bush chic, as competing operators nowadays vie to produce the best, most lavish, most opulent and most comfortably appointed lodges possible, all set against carefully chosen vistas of beautiful wild Africa.
Here are a handful of the better known lodges and tented camps of Serengeti and surrounds, that I hope will offer a tempting glimpse into the finer points of African safari travel.
Rough Travel Africa Style: The Tented Camps & Lodges of Serengeti Mbuzi Mawe Tented Camp Migration Camp Mbalageti Tented Camp Serena Serengeti Serena Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge Serengeti Sopa Lodge Ngorongoro Lobo Wildlife Lodge Serengeti Gibbs Farm Ndarakwai Ranch
