A tree-clad ridge on its own private conservancy at Amboseli’s edge gives Elerai a view in two directions at once. It gazes down onto the plains and up to Kilimanjaro’s snowfields. The conservancy runs to somewhere between three and seven thousand acres of Amboseli and Chyulu Hills country, and forms part of the corridor that links the national park to the surrounding rangelands.
It gazes down onto the plains and up to Kilimanjaro’s snowfields.
The land belongs to Maasai families in the Entonet and Elerai area, who lease it to the conservancy as wildlife country rather than turn it to farmland or grazing alone. Elephants use the corridor to move between the Kilimanjaro forests and Amboseli’s swamps. The ridge gives Elerai a longer, cooler vantage over that movement than the flat basin below could ever offer.
Away from national park rules, the day stretches into the dark. Night drives pick out servals, genets and bushbabies in the spotlight. Walking safaris go out with Maasai guides and armed rangers, reading spoor and tracks across the grasslands. Day drives into the park reach the swamps, where elephant herds gather alongside buffalo and giraffe, and the waterbirds come in wide variety.
Night drives pick out servals, genets and bushbabies in the spotlight.
Elephants, giraffes and zebras move freely through the surrounding country and are seen from camp every day. A floodlit waterhole lies beside the lodge, where elephants and plains game come to drink, their arrival sometimes announced by a low rumble before a single footstep falls. Days close with sundowners on the ridge, Kilimanjaro filling the western sky as the last of the light goes.
Elerai opened in 2007, the work of Maasai landowners, the African Wildlife Foundation and Southern Cross Safaris. The Foundation helped structure the conservation lease, and the camp was built and is now run by Southern Cross Safaris under its Out of Africa Collection. The purpose was twofold: to secure a migratory corridor between the Kilimanjaro forests in Tanzania and the Amboseli ecosystem, and to give Maasai families an income that keeps this land as wildlife habitat rather than farmland. The two aims hold each other in place.
The camp grew around the landscape, not over it. The main lounge and bar are built around a cluster of volcanic boulders, with the seating arranged to follow the contours of the stone. Local materials carry through to the last detail. The rock is hand-laid volcanic stone, the walls are clay-plastered, the support poles acacia and the floors cedar, all under thatched makuti roofs. Solar power supplies the electricity and heats the water across the camp. The result feels closer to a warm, well-worn bush camp than to a designer lodge, and is all the better for it.
The first light of the day strikes Kilimanjaro’s snowfields above the ridge.
Arrival comes on foot, across a wooden footbridge over a marshy pond, where the chatter of nesting weaver birds in the reeds greets guests before the camp comes into view. Mornings begin with coffee brought to the tent. The first light of the day strikes Kilimanjaro’s snowfields above the ridge. Evenings end with a Maasai guide walking guests back to their tents beneath a wide canopy of stars, spotting the eyes of nocturnal animals in the torchlight. Little of this is arranged. Most of it simply happens.
Staff and guides are drawn from the neighbouring villages, so walking safaris and community visits carry a real continuity between older pastoral use of this land and its present role in tourism. Conservation fees and bed-night levies feed a community trust that supports school bursaries, education centres and water infrastructure. Visits to the neighbouring community are conversations with elders and craftspeople, not staged encounters. Watching elephants at the waterhole becomes part of a broader picture of how people, livestock and wildlife share this edge of Amboseli.
accommodation
Seventeen units run along the ridge facing Kilimanjaro and the floodlit waterhole, most with private verandas. Twelve are deluxe canvas tents, raised on platforms and furnished simply and comfortably behind mosquito nets. The other five are cottage suites of local stone under thatched roofs. Several suit families well.
activities
Day game drives run in both the Elerai Conservancy and Amboseli National Park. Night drives, guided walking safaris with Maasai guides, and bush sundowners are conservancy-only, since the national park permits daytime drives alone. Visits to the neighbouring Maasai community can also be arranged.
conservation
Elerai sits in a 5,000-acre community-owned conservancy in the Kitenden corridor, the elephants' route between Amboseli and Kilimanjaro's forests, leased from its Maasai landowners in an agreement the African Wildlife Foundation brokered in 2005. The Elerai Community and Wildlife Trust, founded by the camp with the Elerai Maasai council as its trustees, passes a bed fee and a conservancy fee from every guest to the landowners, funds eleven rangers and compensation for livestock lost to predators, and has put local children through school on bursaries; about 85 percent of the staff are local Maasai.
Get in touch and let’s start the conversation. An initial consultation helps us understand what you’re looking for, whether that’s specific experiences, luxury touches, or marking a special occasion, and from there we’ll guide you through what’s possible so you can decide if we’re the right fit.
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Amboseli and Chyulu Hills
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Amboseli and Chyulu Hills
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Amboseli and Chyulu Hills
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Amboseli and Chyulu Hills
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Amboseli and Chyulu Hills
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Amboseli and Chyulu Hills
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Amboseli and Chyulu Hills
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Amboseli and Chyulu Hills
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Amboseli and Chyulu Hills
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Amboseli and Chyulu Hills
Fly from Nairobi's Wilson airport to the Amboseli airstrip, about forty-five minutes in a scheduled light aircraft, and the camp collects you for a drive of anywhere between forty-five minutes and an hour and a half, depending on whether you take it slowly as a game drive on the way out of the park. A private charter, typically a Cessna Caravan or Pilatus PC-12, can land instead on the conservancy's own strip, about fifteen minutes from camp.
The light aircraft carry soft bags of about fifteen kilograms a person including hand luggage. By road, Nairobi is four to four and a half hours away, turning off the Mombasa highway at Emali.
Yes. The camp stands on a ridge above the Amboseli plains, but the whole basin sits at roughly 1,100 to 1,200 metres, far below the 2,500-metre altitude at which the CDC and the UK's official travel health advice judge malaria risk to fade, so tablets are generally recommended. The risk runs year round and rises a little after rain.
Advice moves with the seasons, so have a travel clinic or your doctor confirm the current position before you go, and guard against bites from dusk onwards.
Warm, dry days with real dust in the dry season, and cool evenings up on the ridge, where the height buys you a breeze the basin floor never gets. The rains fall around November and from March to May, greening the plains below and hiding Kilimanjaro for more of each day.
Pack neutral colours, a warm layer for night drives and early starts, serious sun protection, and closed shoes for the walking safaris. Swimwear is worth having for the pool, and a longer lens earns its keep here.
June to October and January to February give the driest ground, the steadiest game viewing and the clearest Kilimanjaro, which from this ridge is the whole point of the view. The green seasons that follow the rains bring the birds, the young animals and far fewer visitors.
Wildlife moves along the corridor in every month, so the choice is really between dry-season clarity and green-season quiet.
The camp is usually sold on full board, and most itineraries package the conservancy's own activities alongside the room: the night drives, guided walks, sundowners and village visits. Entry fees for Amboseli National Park itself are charged separately, as park fees are across Kenya.
Exactly what sits inside a given rate varies with the season and the length of stay, so we price the whole trip as one quote, flights, transfers, park fees and all, before you commit to anything.
Children of all ages are welcome, and two family tents sleep up to four apiece, so parents and children stay under one roof of canvas. The mix of drives, walks and cultural visits gives older children plenty to do beyond the vehicle.
The camp is unfenced, with elephants and plains game moving through, so young children need close supervision at all times. Tell us the ages and we will match the tent, the activities and the pace to them.
rated five stars by our clients
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our approach
Every journey starts with a conversation. We take the time to understand your vision before we start planning.
Whether by phone or in person, we work with you directly to shape something that is considered, personal, and expertly delivered.
