Singita Sabora Tented Camp

Every flight into the reserve lands at the Sasakwa airstrip, and Singita's road transfer from the strip 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, so anyone landing off an international flight can board at Kilimanjaro rather than drive back to Arusha; 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. Air Excel's scheduled service is the alternative for anyone already in the north: its morning flight leaves Arusha at eight, calls at Kuro in Tarangire, Manyara and Ndutu, and lands at Sasakwa around half past ten, and the same aircraft leaves again at half past ten for Seronera, Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar, which is how we join Sabora to a Tarangire stay before it or a beach after it without a return to town. 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 you, which for a party arriving on different international flights is often the simplest answer.

Two practical points. The light aircraft take soft bags only, fifteen kilograms in the hold and five in the cabin on Grumeti Air, so a hard suitcase stays in Arusha or travels by charter. And Sasakwa is a different strip from Grumeti airstrip, which serves the national park's Western Corridor beyond the reserve boundary, so we book the leg ourselves and check the strip name on the ticket before anything is paid. From the strip the transfer is a game drive rather than a dash: the two agents' timings we hold put it at forty to forty-five minutes, Singita's own pages give no figure, and we confirm it with the camp when we book.

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 with it. 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; the CDC draws its line at the same 1,800 metres and recommends antimalarial medicine together with 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. At Sabora that is the hour of the fire and the walk back across the grass to a tent, so long sleeves and trousers after sunset, repellent on any skin left bare and a check that the tent's mesh panels are closed before dark are sensible whatever else is decided.

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 you fly, 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: Sabora takes them from ten upwards, and the guidance for a ten-year-old is a separate matter for the clinic rather than for a travel company.

Yes, from the age of ten. Singita's rule for Sabora is that children aged ten and over are welcome, which is stricter than the rest of the reserve: Singita's own pages for Sasakwa Lodge, Faru Faru and the private villas all say children of any age. Two further limits apply once there. Singita sets a minimum age of sixteen for its bush walks, so a family with a twelve-year-old should expect the walking to be for the adults, and it leaves a child's part in any game activity to the judgement of the guide on the day. What Singita does promise is that the activities at the camp are tailor-made to the interests of each family, and its published rates charge a child of ten to sixteen sharing a tent at a child rate, with anyone of seventeen and over paying as an adult.

The tents are the practical question. Singita lists Sabora's nine tents as doubles or twins with no family tent among them, so a family of four takes two tents, and a child sleeping apart from their parents is something to think about in a camp where the walls are canvas and the night is loud. If that is not right for yours, we would look at the same reserve's other properties first: Faru Faru has a family suite for two adults and two children and a two-bedroom suite with its own pool, and Sasakwa has cottages of two, three and four bedrooms, each with a private plunge pool. Tell us the ages and we will say which fits before you compare brochures.

Yes to wifi, and Singita includes it in the rate along with telephone calls, so a call home is not an extra on the bill. Singita's own information for the camp is candid about the connection: it is complimentary, but because of the remote position it can be slow and intermittent, so plan on messages and photographs going out between drives rather than a video call at a fixed hour. Mobile signal is described as dependent on area coverage, so treat any bars as a bonus rather than a plan, and remember that the suites are spread across open grass rather than stacked in a building, so the signal in the sala may differ from the signal in bed.

The practical side is straightforward. Power is 220 volts, Singita keeps converters at the camp and supplies hair dryers, so a British plug and a camera charger are not a problem; laundry is included, and check-in is at one in the afternoon with check-out at eleven. If someone in the party needs a reliable hour of connection for work, tell us before we confirm and we will ask Singita what the camp can hold that season rather than promise on its behalf.

Singita divides the reserve's year into light short rains from November to March, long rains in April and May and a dry season from June to October, and unlike Explore, which Singita's rate sheet closes from mid March to mid May, Sabora does not shut for the long rains. Its packing advice follows that calendar: casual summer clothing with a warm jersey for the cooler mornings and evenings from October to April, and lightweight clothing with a very warm parka or windbreaker from May to September, because the first hour in an open vehicle in those months is genuinely cold. Climate records for the Serengeti put dry-season afternoons at around twenty-six degrees and nights at around fourteen, with the occasional cold front between June and September, and the wet months a degree warmer either side. Singita asks for cotton in neutral colours rather than white or dark, walking shoes with grip, a hat, sunglasses, strong sun cream, repellent and binoculars, and it carries waterproof ponchos in the vehicles 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 migration is why the dates matter. Singita says its Grumeti guests can typically see the herds between May and July as they move north-north-west across the reserve towards its camps, and its own field reports fill that in: in 2025 the wildebeest arrived early, on 3 June, and stayed to the end of the month, the bulls competing loudly for the cows through the rut, and by the end of the first week of July the migration had swept past Grumeti and left a quiet landscape of resident herds. It is not an empty plain afterwards. The same July report has the predators settling back to resident prey, with the Sabora pride working the drainage line near the camp for most of the month. For the herds, ask for June and book a year ahead; for the pride and the quiet, the shoulder months either side of the rains are the ones we suggest.

The rate is close to all-inclusive. Singita's published rates for Sabora cover the tent, all meals and drinks including its premium wines and spirits, the twice-daily game drives in open vehicles, tennis at Sasakwa Lodge, the road transfers to and from the Sasakwa airstrip, telephone calls, laundry and wifi; French champagne sits outside the package. Charged on top, and listed as such by Singita, are the wildlife fee, the park and concession fees and the tourism development levy, the carbon offset levy, purchases from the boutique and gallery, wellness treatments, any activity not on the standard list, the balloon flight among them, the flights in and out, and transport between Singita's properties. A private vehicle and guide can be added at a daily charge. The carbon levy is Singita's own scheme: it is worked out from the footprint of each night's stay and buys verified offsets, which in Tanzania means Carbon Tanzania's forest project in the Yaeda Valley, where three village communities take the benefit as healthcare, schooling, food security and work for young people. We build the fees, the levy and the flights into the quote from the start, so the figure you see is the figure you pay.

On how Sabora pairs with the rest of the reserve, Singita's 2026 offers reward staying on: at the time of writing, four nights at any of its Serengeti lodges and camps earn a fifth free with a private vehicle at half price, and six nights across any combination earn a seventh free with the private vehicle included, both for travel between early January and mid May and again from October to mid December, with the free night always the lowest-rated one. Sasakwa Lodge is the manor house with cottages and plunge pools, tennis and a spa; Faru Faru is the smaller lodge with two pools and the family suite; Sabora is the camp of tents on the open plains. Three nights at Sabora and three at one of the others is the shape we suggest most often, in that order: the tents first, while the party is fresh for the early starts, then the house and the pool. Ask us and we will price the combination against the offer before you settle on dates.