You’ll certainly be spoilt for choice when picking the best African safari lodge to stay in. Not only are there mobile tented suites, hillside villas and star beds, but there are treehouses, beach bandas, fly camps and boutique hotel rooms too. These are the best of the best.
The best African safari lodges offer an unrivalled combination of location, comfort, service and experiences. They’re often in the most pristine and remote wilderness areas, where animal tracks vastly outnumber human footprints.
Styles vary depending on location, but certain themes recur: ecological sensitivity, sympathetic architecture using organic materials and local artisan crafts so as to blend in, plus all the creature comforts you could wish for.
Choose from luxury tented and mobile camps on the plains of the Serengeti or Masai Mara, or beachside family villas on Indian Ocean islands. Then there are the classic safari lodges that you picture when you daydream about your next holiday – you’ll find these nestled in Okavango treelines, overlooking waterholes in Hwange, or above the bends of rivers in the Sabi Sands.
While the best African safari lodges are destinations in themselves, they serve as launchpads for bush experiences from game drives to picnics. Typically, the day ends and begins in the lodge (where attentive yet refreshingly informal service and outstanding cuisine are the order of the day). What happens in between is rarely pre-planned, as it can pivot on the whim of an animal or the sudden expressing of long-held wish.
Whether you choose to stay beneath towering trees or within earshot of the waves, you’ll discover the true meaning of luxury.
