Planning · 5 min read

Where you stay on safari: lodges, tented camps and camping

A permanent lodge, a tented camp, a mobile camp that follows the migration, or a tent you camp in yourself. Each level described honestly, and what the price is buying.

Where you sleep on safari changes the trip more than most people expect, and the names do not help. A tented camp can be more comfortable than a lodge. A mobile camp can be the most expensive option on the circuit. Camping can mean a public site with a long-drop or a private camp with a chef.

This page explains the four kinds of safari accommodation in Tanzania, what each one is actually like, and how to choose between them. It does not recommend particular properties. That depends on your route, your dates and your budget, and it is the conversation to have when you enquire.

Itineraries

Safaris we run

All safaris

Private safari

4-Day Serengeti & Ngorongoro Safari

Places Lake Manyara, Serengeti, Ngorongoro

Up to 7 travellers

Four days from Arusha through Lake Manyara, the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater, in a private…

From per person$1,450 Explore itinerary

Private safari

6-Day Serengeti & Ngorongoro Safari

Places Serengeti, Ngorongoro, Olduvai Gorge

Up to 7 travellers

Six days with two full days in the Serengeti, Olduvai Gorge on the way in and the Ngorongoro Crater to…

From per person$2,050 Explore itinerary

Private safari

7-Day Tarangire, Ngorongoro & Lake Eyasi Safari

Places Tarangire, Ngorongoro, Lake Manyara, Lake Eyasi

Up to 7 travellers

Seven days through Tarangire, Lake Manyara and the Ngorongoro Crater, ending with a morning at Lake…

From per person$2,500 Explore itinerary

Private safari

7-Day Cultural & Wildlife Safari

Places Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro, Serengeti

Up to 7 travellers

Seven days pairing the parks with cultural time: Lake Manyara, Lake Eyasi, the Ngorongoro Crater and the…

From per person$2,500 Explore itinerary

Private safari

8-Day Serengeti Migration Safari

Places Lake Manyara, Serengeti, Ngorongoro

Up to 7 travellers

Eight days built around the herds: Lake Manyara, Ndutu in the calving season, two days in the Serengeti…

From per person$2,800 Explore itinerary

Private safari

9-Day Best of Northern Tanzania Safari

Places Lake Manyara, Serengeti, Ngorongoro

Up to 7 travellers

Nine days across the northern circuit at an unhurried pace: Lake Manyara, the Serengeti, two nights at…

From per person$3,200 Explore itinerary

The veranda of a tented camp under canvas, looking out over bush and hills.

At a glance

Lodges: Permanent buildings with rooms, a restaurant, often a pool. Solid walls, electricity, hot water. The most conventional comfort.
Tented camps: Permanent canvas rooms on platforms, with real beds and en-suite bathrooms. The classic safari feel with lodge comfort.
Mobile camps: Seasonal tented camps that move with the migration. Simpler, closer to the animals, often expensive.
Camping: A tent you sleep in, pitched by your crew at a public or special campsite. The cheapest, and the closest to the ground.
What matters most: Position. A camp inside the park gives you the first hour of the day. One outside the gate costs it.
What to ask: How far from the gate. How many rooms. Whether the price includes park and concession fees.

A guest in a white robe looking through binoculars over a breakfast table laid with fruit and juice.

Lodges

A lodge is a permanent building. It has rooms with solid walls, a restaurant and bar, usually a pool, mains or generator electricity, and hot water on tap. Many sit on the crater rim, on the escarpment above Manyara, or at the edge of the Serengeti, chosen for the view.

Lodges suit people who want conventional comfort at the end of a dusty day: a proper shower, a charging point, a room with a door. They are good for families, for anyone nervous about wildlife at night, and for a first safari.

The trade-off is that they can feel like a hotel that happens to be in a park. The bigger ones have many rooms and a coach-tour rhythm. And position varies: some are inside the park, some are forty minutes from the gate, and the price does not always tell you which.

A tented camp is permanent, but the rooms are canvas. Each is a large tent on a wooden platform, with a real bed, a wardrobe, and an en-suite bathroom with a flush toilet and a shower. There is a central mess tent or lodge building for meals. Power is usually solar, with charging in the room or the mess.

This is the accommodation most people picture when they think of safari. You hear the night through the canvas. Animals walk through camp. You are escorted to your tent after dark by a member of staff with a torch.

Tented camps range from mid-range to very expensive, and the price mostly reflects position and size. A small camp inside the park boundary, near the good game areas, is the thing you are paying for.

A couple standing on lamplit rocks at dusk beside a table set for dinner, the bush dark below.

Mobile camps

A mobile camp is a tented camp that moves. It is pitched in one place for a season, usually to follow the migration, and taken down and moved when the herds move. In the calving season it sits on the southern plains at Ndutu. In the crossing season it sits in the far north near the Mara River.

Because it is temporary, it is simpler than a permanent camp: bucket showers filled by staff, a chemical toilet in the tent, no mains power, lamps at night. Because it is where the animals are, it is the best game viewing on the circuit at the times it operates.

Mobile camps are often expensive for what they physically offer, and people are sometimes surprised by that. You pay for being inside the action at dawn. For a migration trip it is usually worth it.

Guests on a lodge terrace with sofas and lanterns, looking out across a green valley at dusk.

Camping

On a camping safari you sleep in a dome tent that your crew carries and pitches, at a public campsite inside the park or at a special campsite reserved for your group. A cook travels with you and makes your meals in a camp kitchen. You eat at a table under the sky.

Public campsites have basic shared toilets and showers, sometimes cold. Special campsites have nothing but the ground and the view, and your crew brings a toilet tent.

Camping is the cheapest way to do a safari, and for many people it is the best: closest to the animals, quietest at night, and with the most sense of being somewhere. It is not for everyone. It is cold in the highlands, you share the site with other groups at the public camps, and there is no lock on a tent.

The single most useful thing to know about safari accommodation is that where a camp sits matters more than what it looks like.

A camp inside the park boundary puts you on a game drive within minutes of waking. You are among the animals for the first hour of light, which is the best hour of the day. A lodge forty minutes outside the gate costs you that hour every single morning, and you pay for it in what you see.

So when you compare two places, ask how far each is from the gate and from the good game areas. Ask how many rooms it has, because a small camp is quieter and gets a better guide-to-guest ratio. And ask whether the price includes park fees and the concession fees that camps inside the park pay. Those three answers explain most of the difference between two quotes.

A table set for dinner beside a campfire in the bush.

Choosing

For a first safari with a comfortable budget, a mix works well: a lodge on the crater rim for the view, a tented camp inside the Serengeti for the animals.

For a migration trip in the calving or crossing seasons, a mobile camp in the right region beats a better building in the wrong one.

For a family, lodges and larger tented camps with family rooms, and a check on minimum ages at anywhere unfenced.

For a tight budget, camping. Two nights in a tent in the Serengeti will show you more than two nights in a lodge outside the gate.

And for any trip, say what matters to you when you enquire. A hot shower, a view, silence, price, being close to the animals. The right camp follows from that.

Questions

What is the difference between a lodge and a tented camp?

A lodge is a permanent building with solid-walled rooms. A tented camp has permanent canvas rooms on platforms, with real beds and en-suite bathrooms. The camp feels more like safari. The lodge feels more like a hotel. Comfort levels overlap.

Are tented camps safe?

Yes. Animals walk through camp and you hear the night through the canvas, but camps have been run this way for decades. Staff escort you to your tent after dark and you stay inside until morning.

What is a mobile camp?

A tented camp that moves with the migration, pitched for a season on the southern plains or in the far north. Simpler than a permanent camp, with bucket showers and no mains power, and often expensive, because it puts you where the animals are.

What is a camping safari like?

You sleep in a dome tent your crew pitches at a park campsite, and a cook makes your meals. Public campsites have basic shared facilities. It is the cheapest option and the closest to the animals, and it is cold in the highlands.

Does it matter whether the camp is inside the park?

More than anything else. A camp inside the boundary gives you the first hour of light among the animals every morning. A lodge outside the gate costs you that hour, every day.

What should I ask about a camp before booking?

Its distance from the gate and the good game areas. How many rooms it has. Whether the price includes park fees and concession fees. Those three answers explain most of the difference between two quotes.

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