Safari, Privately: Camps and Lodges in East and Southern Africa

The finest safaris are decided by three things: the land, the season and the size of the camp. Private conservancies and concessions keep vehicles few and guiding unhurried; the dry months, roughly June to October across East and southern Africa, draw wildlife toward water; and a camp of a dozen tents or suites lets the guides know your name by the second morning. Choose the landscape you want to wake to, then the house, and hold the peak weeks early.

Below are four camps and lodges across Kenya, Botswana and Namibia, the African stays in our Wild Frontiers collection, and the wilder country that can follow them south.

Cottar’s 1920s Camp, Maasai Mara, Kenya

Cottar’s 1920s Camp belongs to one of East Africa’s founding safari families, and it still looks the part: eleven en-suite tents in the style of the 1920s, set privately on the Olderkesi Conservancy in the Maasai Mara, with a mess tent and bar at the heart of camp and the plains running to the horizon. There are five double tents, four family tents with two en-suite bedrooms around a shared lounge, and two honeymoon tents: Kiboko, with a wood-fired hot tub, and Molo, with a bathtub on its private deck.

Days follow the guides: game drives across the conservancy and the edges of the reserve, walks and Maasai cultural visits when conditions allow, and conservation talks in the Explorers Tent. Between drives there is the pool pavilion, a spa tent and a gym; at dusk, a canvas safari bath may be drawn on your veranda. Guests fly from Nairobi by light aircraft to the Olderkesi airstrip, and the drive into camp is the first game drive of the stay.

Cottar’s Bush Villa: the Mara, exclusive use

On the same conservancy, Cottar’s Bush Villa was the first private house built in the Maasai Mara, and it is taken only as a whole. Five en-suite bedrooms, some 10,000 square feet in all, sit on a private hilltop that looks toward the Mara and Serengeti horizon, with a 25-metre pool, an outdoor hot tub, three viewing decks, a library and a boules lawn. Private chefs cook for the house, and a dedicated guide and vehicle belong to your party alone. Meals move between the indoor dining room and the decks, and an anniversary or a birthday can be set for under the stars.

The villa sleeps ten, which makes it the Mara’s most natural address for families and celebrations. July to October is the classic migration window in Kenya; the green season that follows brings lush grazing, strong resident game and fewer vehicles in some corridors.

andBeyond Sandibe Okavango Safari Lodge, Botswana

In Botswana’s Okavango Delta, Sandibe Okavango Safari Lodge sits on a private concession bordering Moremi Game Reserve, with exclusive traversing over roughly 22,500 hectares. Twelve suites, one of them a linked family suite, are raised above the papyrus and reed beds facing the Santantadibe Channel, each with a private deck and plunge pool, and elephants often share the view. The suites are raised above the papyrus and reed beds, so the channel light reaches the bed before the morning call does.

This is land-based safari: game drives in open vehicles across the private concession, and walking safaris, a quieter register, when guides and conditions allow. The Delta is a rare thing, an inland delta whose floodwaters arrive from the Angolan highlands in the dry winter months, so June to October is both the clearest season and the most concentrated; November to May turns green, with summer rain and remarkable birding. Guests fly to Maun or Kasane, then by light aircraft to the Chitabe airstrip.

andBeyond Sossusvlei Desert Lodge, Namibia

Sossusvlei Desert Lodge stands in glass and stone against the escarpment, on a private desert reserve near the NamibRand Nature Reserve, in the Namib, among the oldest deserts on earth. Its suites are glass-fronted, with private plunge pools and skylights that bring the night inside; the Star Dune Suite gathers families or friends travelling together beneath the same open sky.

Mornings begin early among the red dunes and pale clay pans of Sossusvlei, before the heat; afternoons are for Living Dunes drives on the reserve, or for the veranda. At night, neighbouring NamibRand’s status as an International Dark Sky Reserve makes the sky the reason to stay up, with the lodge telescope when an astronomer is in residence. May to October is cooler and clearer, and most guests fly in from Windhoek by light aircraft. Sandibe and Sossusvlei pair naturally: delta, then desert, in one journey through Botswana and Namibia.

Further south: Antarctica’s interior

For some travellers, a southern African year ends further south still. From Cape Town, a privately chartered Airbus flies about five and a half hours to the blue-ice runway at Wolf’s Fang in Queen Maud Land, where White Desert keeps three camps of no more than twelve guests each: Whichaway Camp on the ice-free rock of the Schirmacher Oasis, Echo Base in sky pods beneath the Henriksen Nunataks, and Explorer Camp, the base for the flight to the South Pole.

The season is the Antarctic summer, November to February, under continuous daylight. November and December are the weeks of the emperor penguin colony at Atka Bay; the turquoise meltwater of the Blue Rivers belongs to high summer. Our week on the ice holds Whichaway, the Pole and Echo as one stay in Antarctica.

When to go and how to plan a safari

• Kenya. July to October is the classic dry season and migration window in the Mara; the green months bring lush grazing and resident game. Christmas, New Year and the migration weeks are held first.
• Botswana. June to October is the dry, high-water season in the Okavango, with wildlife concentrated and flying weather steady; November to May is the green season.
• Namibia. May to October is cooler and clearer for the dunes and the night sky; summer heat and rain can close dune roads.
• Antarctica. November to February only, from Cape Town.
• The shape of the day. Safari keeps early hours: out at first light, back for a late breakfast, the heat of the afternoon given to the pool or the veranda, then out again until the light goes, with a drink as the sun sets.
• Light aircraft. Bush flights carry modest, soft-sided luggage and fly by daylight. We sequence the air legs with the camps as one plan, so arrival becomes the first game drive rather than a day lost to transit.
• Pairing. Delta and desert in one southern African journey; the 1920s Camp for two and the Bush Villa for the whole family; Antarctica as the coda from Cape Town.

Choosing your safari

• For classic romance: a honeymoon tent at Cottar’s 1920s Camp.
• For a family or a group: Cottar’s Bush Villa, a family tent at the 1920s Camp, Sandibe’s linked family suite, or the Star Dune Suite at Sossusvlei.
• For walking and water: Sandibe, on its private Okavango concession.
• For landscape and sky: Sossusvlei Desert Lodge.
• For the farthest wilderness: White Desert’s camps, from Cape Town.

Begin the conversation

A safari begins with a few details: who is travelling, the season, and whether the days should be spent on the plains, the water or the dunes. Share them through Plan My Trip, and a dedicated advisor will arrange the camps, the flights between them and the guides, privately and for your dates.