Guides at Offbeat Mara have followed the same lion pride for more than twenty years, individual by individual. They know the Offbeat Pride the way a neighbour knows a family down the road: who belongs to whom, which males have moved in, which cubs survived. The camp takes a bend of the Olare Orok River in Mara North Conservancy, the private Maasai land bordering the Maasai Mara National Reserve.
Elephants work the riverine trees within sight of a veranda.
Piers Winkworth opened it in June 2005: seven canvas tents, cedar beds, no swimming pool. Meals are eaten at one table in the mess tent, and the fire is lit before the morning drive and again at dusk. Zebras and impalas graze the lawn. Elephants work the riverine trees within sight of a veranda. Maasai staff walk guests between tent and fire after dark.
Mara North Conservancy is leased from Maasai landowners by a handful of member camps, and its rules permit what the National Reserve next door does not: off-road driving, night drives, walking with Maasai guides. The camps cap vehicle numbers at any one sighting by agreement. Excursions into the Reserve can be arranged, though there the stricter rules apply.
Tracks, chewed stems, the alarm call that gives a cat away.
On foot the ground reads differently. Tracks, chewed stems, the alarm call that gives a cat away. Mornings can begin with a run instead, guided by Maasai staff across open country. Riding came first here: Tristan and Lucinda Voorspuy started Offbeat as a horseback safari operation in 1989, and those mobile riding safaris, now run separately by Simon and Rosy Kenyon with Jakob von Plessen and Daisy Soames, still cross this country.
Piers Winkworth joined Tristan Voorspuy to guide riding safaris in 2002 and opened Offbeat Mara in June 2005, a semi-permanent tented camp for guests who wanted this country from a vehicle and on foot. He was among those who negotiated with Maasai landowners to bring Mara North Conservancy into being in 2009, and he remains a board member there and the owner of the camp. Edwin and Asaph run it day to day, with a team drawn largely from the surrounding communities. Two of the guides have been here more than sixteen years.
The conservancy’s habitats change as the land falls from the Aitong Hills in the north, through rocky ridges and open grassland, to the reserve boundary, and the game moves with them. Topi, eland, zebras, giraffes and buffalo graze the plains. Hippos and crocodiles hold the deeper pools, and leopards work the riverine strip. From mid-July to mid-October the migration brings wildebeest and zebras through, and the predators follow it. Wild dogs pass through now and then, unannounced.
Hippos and crocodiles hold the deeper pools, and leopards work the riverine strip.
Food is home cooking done properly: bread baked each morning, roasts, soups and salads, and lunch laid out under the trees on the forest deck. Breakfast is often taken in the bush after the early drive, and dinner can be candlelit on a tent veranda. Children are welcome at any age, and there is plenty to occupy them: bow-and-arrow lessons with Maasai staff, beading with women from the local community. Line fishing for catfish and tilapia on the banks of the Olare Orok fills an idle afternoon. Older children tend to get the most out of the camp’s more adventurous character.
A few hundred metres downstream, a smaller sister camp opened in 2021 and takes a different line: four tents and a suite instead of seven, its own mess tent on the riverbank, dining under sycamore figs on a river island, and private vehicles and guiding as standard. Offbeat Mara is the more sociable of the two, built around one long table and two family tents, the kind of camp that suits a group travelling together. Access is a flight from Nairobi’s Wilson Airport to Mara North airstrip, then about an hour’s drive through the conservancy, which counts as game viewing before arrival.
accommodation
Seven tents, five doubles or twins and two family tents of two bedrooms each, spaced well apart in the riverine forest. The canvas is Meru-style, the beds cedar, the lighting solar, with a writing desk and canvas wardrobe. The bathroom is behind the sleeping area: twin basins, flush loo, hot shower. Each opens onto a shaded veranda.
activities
Day and night game drives in open 4x4s with camera mounts, and off-road driving where a sighting warrants it: the conservancy permits all three, the Maasai Mara National Reserve none of them. Walking safaris with Maasai guides, morning runs, line fishing, bush breakfasts and sundowners. Balloon flights and visits to Aitong market can be arranged.
conservation
A founding partner of Mara North Conservancy in 2009, the camp helps fund the leases that pay Maasai landowners directly for keeping this land open to wildlife. Seed Balls Kenya and an on-site tree nursery work to replant degraded ground. Beadwork by women from the local community is sold in camp, and the school at Aitong receives ongoing support.
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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By light aircraft. Scheduled services leave Nairobi's Wilson airport for Mara North airstrip, the strip that serves the conservancy, and the sector runs around forty five to fifty minutes, longer when the aircraft calls at another Mara strip first.
From the strip it is a short drive to the camp on the Olare Orok. We can also put on a private charter, usually a Cessna Caravan or a Pilatus PC-12, which goes direct and leaves on your timing rather than the airline's.
The aircraft take soft bags only, fifteen kilograms a person including hand luggage and camera gear, so a duffel rather than a hard case. Driving from Nairobi is possible and takes the better part of a day.
Mara North is private land leased from its Maasai landowners, and the rules inside it are set by the conservancy rather than by the national reserve. In practice that means far fewer vehicles at a sighting, permission to drive off the track to follow something properly, night drives after dark, and walking with a guide. None of those are allowed inside the Maasai Mara National Reserve itself.
The reserve is still worth a day for its sheer density of animals and for the river crossings in season, and we build both into a stay rather than choosing between them.
Yes. The UK's official travel health service, TravelHealthPro, and the American CDC both treat the whole of Kenya below 2,500 metres as a malaria area, and both name the game reserves and conservancies specifically. Mara North sits at roughly 1,500 to 1,900 metres, well inside that.
TravelHealthPro rates the country high risk and recommends antimalarial tablets for it, and the CDC records transmission across all areas below that altitude. The only parts of Kenya either sets apart are central Nairobi and the highlands above 2,500 metres.
We do not make medical recommendations. We are travel planners, not doctors. Which tablets are right for you, whether they suit your own health or anyone else's in the party, and what is appropriate for a child, is a conversation between you and your doctor or a travel clinic.
The practical side we can speak to is not medical: cover arms and legs from late afternoon and keep repellent to hand.
The Mara is high ground, so it runs warmer and drier by day than people expect and considerably colder at dawn than they pack for. Afternoons settle in the middle twenties, nights fall to around eleven or twelve degrees, and an open vehicle at first light takes several degrees off that again.
The long rains fall from about March into May, April the wettest, and the short rains come in November and December, usually as an afternoon storm rather than a lost day.
Layers do the work: a base layer, a fleece and a windproof jacket you can shed by mid morning, with long trousers, a hat and sunglasses for the strong high altitude light. Keep it inside the fifteen kilogram soft bag allowance on the flight in.
The herds usually cross into the Mara from July and stay into October, and the crossings people picture are concentrated in August and September. Mara North sits on the route north of the reserve, so the herds move through the conservancy as well as the reserve, and in a good year the camp has them on its doorstep.
Nobody can promise a crossing on a given day. The herds move on rain, grass and river levels rather than a calendar, so we plan your dates into the strongest part of the window and treat the crossing as something you have a good chance of seeing rather than a fixture. Out of season the conservancy holds its resident game year round, which is much of its appeal.
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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.
