Six canvas tents go up in Northern Kenya, and when the wildlife and the seasons move on, they come down and go up again somewhere better. Open since December 2024, this is the fourth Sarara camp and the only one that travels. It pitches on the fringe of the Samburu and Buffalo Springs national reserves, taken by one group at a time, with a Samburu host and vehicle of their own.
They are not a feature of the mountain camps in the same way
Two and a half hours north, Sarara’s permanent camps sit in the forest of the Mathews Range, and the drive between them pairs mountain with river. Lion, cheetah, leopard, hippo and buffalo live in this river country. They are not a feature of the mountain camps in the same way. At about 800 metres, the days run warm and the nights stay mild, noticeably warmer than the mountains.
The tents are canvas, walk-in and en suite, with flush loos and hot bucket showers filled by hand. The mess tent holds the lounge, the bar and the dining table, and a second takes the library, the massage table and the cold plunge machines. A mobile pool goes up wherever the camp lands, and the whole camp can be struck and carried out, leaving the ground as it was.
Dinner is often laid out in a dry riverbed under lantern light
Katie Rowe trained at Prue Leith’s school in London, and the kitchens across the Sarara camps still work to her thinking: Kenyan produce, cooked simply, plenty of it. Dinner is often laid out in a dry riverbed under lantern light. Afterwards a Samburu host settles by the fire. There are stories around the fire until the stars take over. All meals and drinks are included, the bar in the mess tent.
In 1997 Piers and Hilary Bastard, third-generation Kenyans, opened Sarara Camp in the Mathews Range in partnership with Samburu elders, the first locally owned tourism venture in Namunyak. Their son Jeremy and his wife Katie Rowe took it on in 2010. They have lived there ever since, raising three children on the ground the camps stand on. In 2016, together with the community, they founded Reteti Elephant Sanctuary, an Indigenous-owned African elephant sanctuary. Robert Lemayian manages the camps.
The Ewaso Ng’iro draws game into a narrow band of doum palms and riverine bush, and the camp is pitched to make use of it. Drives cover Samburu and Buffalo Springs, and the community land around them, where walking with a guide and meals in the bush are possible in a way the reserves do not allow. Elephants move along the sand riverbed at night, close enough to the tents to hear. The birdlife along the river is a specific draw, and the evenings are given over to sundowners in the riverbeds and to stargazing.
Elephants move along the sand riverbed at night, close enough to the tents to hear.
The camp is Samburu-run, and owned through the same community structure, so the cultural side of a stay follows from who works there rather than being arranged as entertainment. Mornings can be spent beading with Samburu women, who explain what the colours and patterns record. Homestead visits are unscripted. There is Ngoma, sung and danced around the fire, and a blacksmith who works iron as his family always has. In the dry months, herders dig down into the riverbeds and sing to their livestock as they haul water up in chains, the Singing Wells.
Access is by scheduled flight or charter into Buffalo Springs or Kalama, then a transfer by road, or by helicopter straight to camp. Heli days go further, out to extinct volcanoes, the Suguta Valley and Lake Turkana. Solar power runs the camp, Starlink covers it, and it closes in November for the short rains. Because one group takes it at a time, it suits families and parties travelling together; children are welcome, with five and over the easier fit. Most itineraries pair it with a stay in the Mathews Range.
accommodation
Six canvas tents, made to measure, walk-in and en suite, sleep up to twelve guests across the whole of Sarara Wilderness, which is taken privately, one group at a time. Each has soft beds, plug points, a flush loo and a hot bucket shower filled indoors by hand. Lantern-lit paths lead to the mess tent, and there is a mobile pool.
activities
Guided game drives run into Samburu and Buffalo Springs and across the community land bordering them, which permits walking, sundowners and bush dinners in the riverbeds. Beading, homestead visits, Ngoma and the Singing Wells sit alongside birding, stargazing and helicopter flights over the volcanoes of Northern Kenya.
conservation
Sarara Wilderness is run by the Samburu community through The Sarara Foundation, co-founded in 2016 by Jeremy Bastard and Katie Rowe. The Foundation is also the operating and funding partner of Reteti Elephant Sanctuary, which is community-owned and community-run by the Samburu and has rehabilitated and released 23 orphaned elephants since 2019, alongside Montessori schools, mobile clinics and the Milk to Market programme paying Samburu women for goat milk.
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.
By air to Buffalo Springs or Kalama, the two airstrips the camp uses, and then by vehicle. Scheduled services from Nairobi's Wilson airport take about an hour to an hour and a half depending on how many strips the aircraft calls at, and the camp collects you at the strip.
We can arrange a private charter instead, typically a Cessna Caravan or a Pilatus PC-12, which lets us route you straight from another camp rather than back through Nairobi. A helicopter can also land at the camp itself, which turns the transfer into part of the safari, and helicopter flying runs from camp for those who want the country from above.
Soft bags only on the light aircraft, fifteen kilograms a person including hand luggage. If the trip pairs this camp with one of the Sarara places in Namunyak, the road link is about two and a half hours, and we would usually make that a game drive rather than a transfer.
It sits on the edge of the two reserves rather than inside either, in the country the Ewaso Ng'iro runs through, and the river is also the line between them: Samburu National Reserve lies on the north bank and Buffalo Springs on the south, and the game drives go into both.
The river is the reason for the wildlife. It runs all year through country that is otherwise dry, so elephant, which are abundant in both reserves, come to it daily, and the woodland along its banks is one of the better places in the country to see leopard.
What sets this corner apart from the Mara or Laikipia is the dry-country animals that live almost nowhere else in the country: the endangered Grevy's zebra, reticulated giraffe, beisa oryx, the gerenuk that stands on its hind legs to browse, and the Somali ostrich. Guides call them the Samburu Special Five, and a stay at this camp is the place to see them.
Yes, and it is worth being clear because the other Sarara camps sit higher. This camp is at about 800 metres, and the reserves it borders run from roughly 800 to 1,230 metres, all of it well below the 2,500 metre line that matters.
TravelHealthPro, the UK's official travel health service, rates Kenya as high risk for malaria and recommends antimalarial tablets for it, setting apart only the city of Nairobi and the highlands above 2,500 metres, and it gives no seasonal exemption; the American CDC records transmission in all areas below that altitude, game parks included.
The reassurance sometimes offered for the Mathews Range camps on account of their height does not carry down to the river.
We do not make medical recommendations. We are travel planners, not doctors. Which tablets suit you, how they sit with anything else you take and what is right for a child are questions for your own doctor or a travel clinic.
The practical part is not medical: the river draws mosquitoes as surely as it draws elephant, so long sleeves at dusk and repellent in the tent are worth the small effort.
The dry months. From June to October and again from December to March the river is the only reliable water for miles, so the animals come to it and are easy to find, and the days are hot, dry and dusty, typically thirty to thirty five degrees by mid afternoon with cooler nights.
At around 800 metres this is warmer country than the Sarara camps in the hills, which is worth knowing when you pack.
The long rains fall from about March or April to May and the short rains in November, which is the month the camp comes down.
April and May are green, quieter and better for birds, but the grass is long and the animals spread out, and a heavy year can make the river tracks hard going. Tell us what the trip is for and we will say which month serves it.
Yes. Children of all ages are welcome, and we would say it suits children of five and over best: this is a tented camp on a river with elephant walking past.
Because the whole camp is taken by one party, with its own Samburu host, guide and vehicle, the usual worries about other guests, set mealtimes and a child's stamina on a long drive fall away, and the day runs at your family's pace.
Six tents give a family room to spread out, and children of eight and over share a tent with their siblings while younger ones sleep in with their parents. Tell us the ages and we will shape the days around them, and say honestly whether a very young child would be happier at one of the Sarara houses in the hills, which have proper family units.
Almost everything, which is how a camp taken whole should work. Full board with bush meals and sundowners, house drinks including soft drinks, local beers and the house wines and spirits, laundry, the transfers to and from the Buffalo Springs or Kalama airstrips, and a private Samburu guide and spotter with a vehicle for your group alone.
Game drives, walking, the cultural visits and stargazing are part of the stay rather than extras.
Premium wines and spirits are the main thing outside the price. We set the whole cost out in one figure before you commit, so there is nothing to find on the last morning.
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our approach
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