Tented Camps
Canvas walls, an en-suite bathroom and the bush right outside, mostly at Comfort or Mid-range. The budget goes into time in the park rather than the furnishings.
Where we book
The tented camps we book, by area.
- Burunge Tented LodgeTarangireComfort
Photos: Tanganyika Wilderness Camps - Lake Burunge Baobab Tented LodgeTarangireMid-range
Photos: Burunge Baobab Lodge - Tarangire Kati KatiTarangireMid-range
Photos: Tanganyika Wilderness Camps - Serengeti Sound of NatureCentral SerengetiComfort
Photos: Serengeti Sound of Nature - Dancing DumaCentral SerengetiMid-range
Photos: Dancing Duma Tented Camp - Kubu Kubu Tented LodgeCentral SerengetiPremium
Photos: Tanganyika Wilderness Camps - Lahia Tented LodgeWest SerengetiMid-range
Photos: Tanganyika Wilderness Camps - Mara Mara Tented LodgeNorth SerengetiPhotos coming soonPremium
Examples we book, not a fixed list. Which one suits your journey depends on your dates, route and availability, and we quote every stay in your personal price.
What a tented camp is like
A camp for twenty to forty guests, with large walk-in tents on raised platforms, a proper bed, and an en-suite bathroom with a hot shower. Meals are full board, served in a shared dining tent, and they are good, plain and plentiful. Only canvas sits between you and the bush, so you hear it at night, and that is much of the appeal.
Most of the camps on this page are Comfort or Mid-range. At Comfort, everything you need works and nothing you are paying for is decoration. At Mid-range you get more space and more finish in the tent and at the table. None of them is a budget campsite. A few Premium tented lodges are listed here too, and on our premium page with the other luxury camps.
What you get
- A real room under canvas: bed, bathroom and hot water, not a sleeping bag.
- The bush close by: canvas walls, the night sounds, and often animals passing through camp.
- Honest food: full board, cooked on site, with dietary needs handled if you tell us in advance.
- The money in the right place: what you save on the room goes into park days, a better vehicle or an extra night where it counts.
- A fair price: often a fraction of a premium camp for the same park, at either level, which is what makes a longer trip affordable.
The trade-off: time on the road
Some of these camps sit just outside a park gate. That is part of what keeps them affordable, and it is also their main cost: each morning you drive to the park before the game drive really starts, and each evening you drive back out.
In Tarangire or Lake Manyara, where the gate is close to good game, that barely matters. In the Serengeti it can: the best areas may be a long way from any gate, so a camp outside it means an earlier start, a longer drive, or both. We tell you which nights that applies to before you book, not when the alarm goes off.
How we use them in a journey
At Comfort, most often on arrival nights and transit nights, where you arrive late, leave early, and would barely see a more expensive room. Also on our group safaris, where keeping the shared price down is the point. At Mid-range, as the main stay of a journey that wants canvas and the bush without a premium price.
And as the base of a value-focused trip, with the savings spent on something that changes the experience: an extra day in the park, or one or two nights somewhere closer in when it matters most.
Where it's worth it, and where it isn't
Worth it: value-focused travellers who would rather have more days than more furnishings. Group safaris. Arrival and departure nights. Parks where the gate is close to the best game, so staying outside costs you almost nothing.
Less worth it: deep in the Serengeti in migration season, where the herds can be hours from the nearest gate and the drive eats the day. On those nights we would suggest a camp inside the park, even for one or two nights, and saving elsewhere.
Questions travellers actually ask
No. At Comfort and at Mid-range alike, you sleep in a proper bed in a large walk-in tent with its own bathroom and a hot shower. What you do not get is the extras of a premium camp: the decor, the pool, the wine list. What you keep is the canvas, and the sound of the bush through it at night.
Only at a camp outside the park gate, and then it depends on the park. Where the gate is close to good game, it can be a few minutes. In the Serengeti, where the best areas can be a long way from any gate, it can mean leaving before first light or accepting an hour or more of driving. We will tell you which applies to each night.
Generally, yes. Like anywhere off-grid it can be slower in the evening rush, and it is worth showering before dinner rather than after.
Usually the best one, especially at Comfort. They keep the shared price down and put the money where the group spends its day: in the vehicle, in the park. Ask us which camps a particular departure uses and we will tell you.
The other ways to sleep in the bush, and the departures that use these camps.
