One party takes the whole camp, up to twelve guests, with a guide and vehicle of their own. The camp stands in the western corridor of the Singita Grumeti Reserve in northern Tanzania, on a site Singita chooses for the grazing and the movement of game. Six canvas tents, warm bucket showers, and the calls of hyena carrying in from the dark.
Walking safaris leave straight from camp, into open grass.
The camp sits low in tall grass, on plains scattered with waterholes and acacias, kopjes on the horizon, on the route more than a million wildebeest travel each year. Walking safaris leave straight from camp, into open grass. The pace is set by the group, not a timetable. Canvas is the only wall. Solar panels supply the power.
The Grumeti Reserve covers 350,000 privately managed acres in the western corridor of the greater Serengeti ecosystem, and its rules differ from those inside Serengeti National Park. Guides can walk, drive off the road and stay out after dark, so a morning might begin on foot, following the previous night’s tracks, and end with coffee brewed in the grass.
Hyena packs make themselves heard long after dinner.
Wildebeest and zebra pass through this sector in June and July, but lions hold territory here year round, alongside elephant herds and leopards. Hyena packs make themselves heard long after dinner. Between drives there is birdwatching, a dawn balloon flight, a visit to an anti-poaching observation post, or nothing at all. The day can turn on a set of fresh tracks, without consulting anyone else.
Luke Bailes opened his first lodge, Ebony, in 1993, on land his grandfather had bought. He built it with a close friend, Mark Witney, who took on the conservation side of the work. In 2006 the two of them took on management of the Grumeti concession, a landscape then suffering from illegal hunting, uncontrolled fires and spreading invasive plants. Singita Explore is the most pared-back of the camps that grew out of that work, and the least built.
Six one-bedroom tents, en-suite, furnished in leather, steel and wood, hold little in them that is not needed. There are no room grades and no upgrades: the tents are identical, and the camp belongs to whoever books it. The mess allows the party to eat together. Bucket showers are warmed and filled by the staff, morning and evening. Birds settle in the branches overhead, and the smell of dust and grass never leaves. Between the bed and the plains there is canvas, and nothing else.
Nights end with stories over the embers, and then the hyenas start out in the grass.
Sunrise is announced by a voice outside the canvas, not an alarm. Walking is the reason most people come, and guides read the ground on foot in a way that inside Serengeti National Park itself requires prior authorisation. Meals come from a camp kitchen run by a private chef, eaten in the mess tent when the wind gets up and otherwise outside, around the fire, as the light goes. Nights end with stories over the embers, and then the hyenas start out in the grass. They keep going. Dinner tends to run long, because there is nowhere else to be and no other table to consider.
The camp closes from mid-March to mid-May, when the long rains make the western corridor’s tracks unreliable. June and July bring the herds through this part of the ecosystem, and the shoulder months hold resident lions and elephants, and birds arriving from Europe and Asia. Families and groups of friends travelling together take the camp most easily, with two tents free to be reconfigured for children or turned over to treatments and fitness space. Guest contributions go to the Grumeti Fund, which has brought buffalo and elephant numbers back across the reserve.
accommodation
Six one-bedroom canvas tents, en-suite, held by one party of up to twelve guests, with a private guide and vehicle. Each has a bed, a washstand and a bucket shower filled with warm water by hand. Two tents can be reconfigured for a family, or turned over to treatments and fitness. Solar panels power the camp.
activities
Guided walks leave from camp, on ground where walking, off-road driving and after-dark game drives are permitted because the Grumeti Reserve is privately managed rather than part of Serengeti National Park. Also on offer: birdwatching, balloon flights, community visits, wine tastings and a stop at the anti-poaching post.
conservation
The Grumeti Fund, an independent non-profit funded by guest contributions and philanthropists, has run wildlife protection across the reserve since 2003, reversing losses from illegal hunting, wildfire and invasive vegetation. Buffalo and elephant numbers have recovered. Community work runs with neighbouring villages.
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Every flight into the reserve lands at the Sasakwa airstrip, and Singita's road transfer from there out to the camp is part of the rate. Singita's own airline, Grumeti Air, flies in daily from Arusha with a call at Kilimanjaro on the way, in a Cessna Grand Caravan or a Beechcraft King Air 350; Singita quotes about an hour in the air from Arusha and an hour and a quarter from Kilimanjaro when the flight is direct, so allow a little more for the stop. We can also put a private charter in, typically a Cessna Caravan or a Pilatus PC-12, from Arusha or Kilimanjaro at a time that suits the party, which for a group of twelve arriving off different international flights is often simpler than holding everyone to one departure. Whichever aircraft, the hold takes soft bags only, fifteen kilograms a person, and Singita itself advises flying in rather than driving.
The drive from the strip is the part people do not expect. Explore sits out beyond Singita's other camps, past Sabora, and a visitor in 2025 timed the transfer at about forty minutes; the exact figure depends on where the tents are in a given season, so we confirm it with Singita when we book. The vehicle then stops short of the camp and the last stretch is on foot: Singita's own account of a stay describes stepping off a short distance from the tents and walking in, which is the camp's way of telling you what the next few days will be like.
Yes. Singita's own information for the camp says Singita Grumeti sits in a malaria-risk area and asks guests to consult their medical practitioner about anti-malaria requirements before travelling, and the two official sources we work from agree. TravelHealthPro, the UK's official travel health service, classes all of Tanzania below 1,800 metres as high risk for malaria and lists antimalarial tablets among its recommendations for those areas, and the CDC draws its line at the same 1,800 metres and recommends antimalarial medication alongside bite prevention for anyone going below it. Both put weight on avoiding bites, and TravelHealthPro notes that the mosquitoes carrying the disease feed mainly between dusk and dawn, which at Explore means the walk back from the fire to a canvas tent: long sleeves and trousers after sunset, repellent on any skin left bare, and a check that the tent is zipped before dark are sensible whatever else is decided. For the morning walks, long trousers and closed shoes are the norm in any case.
We are travel planners rather than medical people, so the decision about tablets sits with you and your doctor or a travel clinic, and it is worth having that conversation four to six weeks before departure, because the advice changes and the right choice depends on the person taking it. If children are in the party, raise that at the same appointment: the guidance for them is a separate matter and it belongs with the clinic rather than with a travel company.
Yes, at any age. Singita's rule for Explore is that children of all ages are welcome because the camp is taken by one party, so there is no other guest to consider, and the camp offers childminding and a Mini Rangers course built around tracking, the night sky, bush survival skills and nature competitions. Two limits matter when planning. Singita sets a minimum age of sixteen for its bush walks, and it leaves a child's part in any game activity to the judgement of the guide on the day, so a family with younger children should expect the walking to be for the adults and the vehicle to carry the rest of the day. Singita charges children from two to sixteen at a child rate rather than the adult one, and for the larger parties it adds a second vehicle, which is what makes a split morning possible: we would ask Singita to plan the days so the adults walk while the younger ones drive.
Two practical points from us. A small child who finds a canvas wall and a loud night thrilling is a different proposition from one who finds it frightening, so tell us honestly which yours is before we suggest the camp. And because the tents are counted per party rather than sold by room type, Singita describes the camp as up to six tents in permutations to suit the group, so a smaller family is not paying to leave tents empty.
More than the word suggests. Singita's information for the camp says wifi is available throughout it, with a note that it would rather guests switched off, and a visitor in 2025 confirmed it worked; the camp runs on solar power with a 220 volt supply, so phones and camera batteries charge, though bring an adaptor rather than rely on the camp having one. Singita makes no promise about mobile signal at Explore, so treat any bars as a bonus rather than a plan. There is a limited laundry service with a day's turnaround, check-in is at two in the afternoon and check-out at eleven, and Singita's own description mentions a plunge pool, which the same 2025 visitor found to be a small above-ground pool for cooling off rather than swimming.
The people are the other half of it. The rate covers a private guide, a camp host, a chef and the camp staff, so the party is looked after by the same small team from first morning to last, and because the showers are filled by hand rather than plumbed, the water is heated on request, so say the evening before whether the morning shower should be hot. If someone in the party needs a set hour of reliable connection for work, tell us before we confirm and we will ask Singita what the camp can actually hold that season rather than promise on its behalf.
Singita divides the reserve's year into short rains from November to March, long rains in April and May and a dry season from June to October, and Explore closes for the long rains every year from 15 March, reopening for the season on 16 May. Its packing advice for the camp follows that calendar: casual summer clothing with something warm for October to April, and lightweight clothing with a very warm jacket or windbreaker from May to September, because the first hour on foot or in an open vehicle in the dry season is genuinely cold. Singita asks for neutral colours, walking shoes with grip, a hat, sunglasses, strong sun cream and binoculars, and it keeps waterproof ponchos at the camp for the days rain arrives, so a light shell of your own is enough. All of it goes in soft bags at fifteen kilograms a person for the aircraft.
The reopening date is not an accident. Singita says its Grumeti guests can typically see the migration between May and July as the herds move north-north-west across the reserve towards its camps, and its June 2025 field report records the wildebeest arriving on 3 June and staying to the end of the month, the bulls competing loudly for the cows. So the first weeks after the camp reopens are the ones to ask for if the herds are the reason for coming, and we would book those dates a year ahead. Outside that window the reserve keeps its resident game and the camp is easier to secure, and the shoulder months either side of the rains are the ones we suggest for a party that wants the walking more than the spectacle.
The camp is sold to one party as a whole. Singita's 2026 rate sheet for its Serengeti properties sets the terms: private use, a maximum of twelve guests, a minimum charge of two adults, so a couple can take it, a minimum stay of two nights, and children from two to sixteen charged at a child rate. The rate includes the accommodation, all meals and drinks, the private guide, camp host, chef and camp staff, the private game drives in open vehicles, the road transfers between the Sasakwa airstrip and the camp, the limited laundry service and the wifi. Charged on top, and listed as such by Singita, are the wildlife fee, the park fee, the concession fee and the tourism development levy, the carbon offset levy, purchases from the Singita boutique and gallery, wellness treatments, any activity not on the standard list, and the flights in and out. The carbon levy is Singita's own scheme: it is worked out from the footprint of each night's stay and buys verified carbon credits from accredited providers in the region, which in Tanzania means Carbon Tanzania's forest project in the Yaeda Valley, where the money goes to healthcare, schooling, food security and jobs for young people in three villages. Grumeti Air offsets its own aviation fuel separately and does not pass that cost to passengers.
We build the fees, the levies and the flights into the quote from the start, so nothing arrives as a surprise on the final invoice. On how the camp fits with the rest of the reserve, Singita's own 2026 offers pair three nights at Explore with two at Serengeti House on Sasakwa Hill, with the last Explore night free at the time of writing, and that order is the one we would suggest anyway: the walking camp first, while the party is fresh, then the house with its pool and its beds. Sabora is about twenty minutes from the camp and Sasakwa a further forty, so a move between them costs an afternoon rather than a flight.
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