An African safari was, for many years, a bucket list dream, remote in both likelihood and distance. Over the last couple of decades, though, the safari industry has grown like Topsy, and was valued last year at $29bn (£22bn) – with annual visitor numbers ranging from 3 to 5 million. The safari industry is expected to be worth more than $50bn by 2032.
While these numbers are undeniably good news for African tourism, they bring a few downsides for the actual tourists. And if you want to recapture the intimacy of Attenborough’s televised encounters or – to go back even further – the wilderness escapism of Karen Blixen, being lined up with a dozen other safari vehicles overloaded with telephoto lenses is not going to cut it.
To lose the crowds, then, head for a private reserve in a small camp where you’ll find knowledgeable guides who will drive you in your own vehicle and (with luck and some considerable expertise) find the animals that most interest you. In these camps, you’ll almost certainly also find a traditional laid-back ambience with a few little luxuries (Blixen was an absolute demon for fine china) and even the possibility of solitude, perhaps watching from your veranda as long lines of antelope and zebra come to the waterhole. All, in fact, as it should be: just you and the animals.
Here’s our guide to six of the best.
Soroi Larsens Camp
Kenya
Blixen was not the only Dane to fall in love with Kenya. Erik Ole Larsen arrived there in the 1950s, an explorer, safari guide and one of the earliest pioneers of the “safari under canvas” concept that combined opulent silver-service dining seated on antique furniture with nature in the raw. At the very spot where he pitched his first tent in the Samburu National Reserve, Soroi Larsens Camp keeps his memory and sense of style alive.
Set on the banks of the Ewaso Nyiro river, the animals have a tendency to come to you. These include such rarities as Grévy’s zebra and the comical gerenuk – an unusually long-necked antelope – grazing the treetops on its hind legs.
There are guided bush walks as well as game drives to find the rest of the Samburu Special Five while, back at “home”, tented suites provide indoor luxury and fine dining (though you can also have private sunset dinners out in the bush). In the two deluxe suites, you can enjoy the services of a private butler who will light a fire in your grand fireplace, provide a nightcap or prepare a romantic sleepout on your upper deck.
A six-night safari (staying three nights at Soroi Larsens Camp and three nights at Soroi Luxury Migration Camp) with Expert Africa costs from £6,620 per person, based on two sharing, in October 2026. The price includes return international flights from London Heathrow, internal flights to Samburu and Maasai Mara, full board with selected drinks, park fees and game drive activities.
Elsa’s Kopje
Kenya
English conservationists Joy and George Adamson were in Kenya in the 1950s, too, in Meru National Park, where they raised and eventually released their adopted orphaned lioness, Elsa, back into the wild. When her story became the subject of the film Born Free with Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, it would change forever the public’s view of zoos and keeping animals in captivity.
Elsa’s Kopje is the elegant camp that is now sculpted into Mughwango Hill above the Adamsons’ original site, its vast cottages scattered among the rocks with views out over the concession’s 215,000 acres. Recently renovated (it was opened in 1999 by McKenna and Dr Richard Leakey), the lodge is the only one in a park that is recognised as having the greatest diversity of animal species of any in East Africa. After the excitement of the game drive, you can watch the film in their open-air cinema with, no doubt, the occasional accompanying roar from Elsa’s descendants.
Rates for the Elsa’s Kopje game package start from $585 (£439) per person per night, based on two sharing. This includes scheduled game drives twice daily, all meals and drinks (house wine, beer and spirits), bush sundowner, two-hour guided walking safari, laundry and airstrip transfers, but not international flights.
Nxabega Okavango Tented Camp and Xaranna Okavango Delta Camp
Botswana
In the early days of safaris, you were constantly on the move, following the animals – and your camp moved with you. Nowadays, this is a comparatively rare concept and most game drives end back at a lodge, with all the facilities of modern life. You can, though, step back in time and go on a traditional mobile safari. &Beyond are opening two such camps this March in the Okavango Delta in Botswana, with seven-night mobile safaris through some of the country’s most iconic landscapes.
Their Sandibe safari is within one of the Okavango’s most wildlife-rich concessions, with year-round sightings of lions, leopards, cheetahs and wild dogs. Game drives are peppered with walking safaris and village visits, taking you deep under Africa’s skin.
The Nxabega safari is based among water-laced floodplains where you can travel by mokoro (local canoe) as well as in a safari vehicle. &Beyond camps have just three tents each (so a maximum of six guests), but with the comfort of proper beds and showers, solar lighting and even USB ports to greet you at the end of the day – an adventure leavened with a little luxury.
From March 1, &Beyond has tents from $580 (£435) per person per night, based on two sharing, including all meals and twice daily game drives.
Borana Lodge
Kenya
Once mounted on a horse, humans are no longer perceived as a threat by the great herds of zebras and antelope that fill the Kenyan plains. If you want to ride with them, you’ll find this is a speciality at the Borana Conservancy, where three generations of the Dyer family have been camping in the wild and exploring the terrain on horseback for decades. Now, they offer guided rides to everyone from complete beginners to seasoned riders (only the latter get to ride the thoroughbreds, though).
There’s a traditional lodge with just eight cottages on Borana’s 32,000 acres at the foot of Mount Kenya, and a wealth of wildlife (black and white rhinos, elephants, lions, cheetahs, leopards and more) – and you can still go “fly camping” for a night under canvas in the wild. As well as riding with the animals, there are game drives, mountain bikes, village visits and even a spa, where a massage could be just the ticket after a day on horseback.
Three nights at Borana Lodge and one night fly camping costs from £3,229 per person, based on two people sharing on a full-board basis, and including all horseback safaris, guided e-biking excursions, local transfers, day and night game drives, mountain biking, bush walks and conservation experiences, but not including international flights. Children under five stay free.
Cottars 1920s Camp
Kenya/Tanzania
A rare survivor of the original safari era, with Cottars, the clue is in the name. Arguably Africa’s oldest family-run safari company, it was founded in 1919 and is now run by the fifth generation of Cottars. They have kept the style of classic expedition camps (roomy cream tents, campaign furniture, lots of brass and leather, trunks for storage and lantern lights) but added a contemporary level of comfort. And their approach to safari drives has a decidedly traditional feel – unhurried and immersive, with knowledgeable guides who are experts in tracking and bushcraft.
Cottars are in the Olderkesi Conservancy bordering both the Maasai Mara (where Blixen would visit for weeks at a time) and Tanzania and the Serengeti, so a wealth of animals is pretty much guaranteed. There are just 11 guest tents and, at night, the camp’s nostalgic style comes to the fore, with fine dining in the main mess tent, talks in the explorers’ tent, and drinks and story-telling round the fire. You can even have a traditional canvas safari bath, drawn on your tent’s veranda and affording sweeping views across the plains.
A four-night stay at Cottars on an all-inclusive basis, including international and domestic flights, starts from £5,961 per person, booked via the Luxury Safari Company.
Big Lagoon Camp
Zambia
A walking safari is by its very nature on the smallest possible scale. Usually there is a maximum of six guests and you walk with the rangers in single file, out in the bush. One will be carrying a rifle (never to be used), the other will have a kettle with which to make tea or coffee over a fire started by rubbing two sticks together, and accompanied by delicious homemade cake. Walking in the bush is where you’ll find yourself in the closest possible proximity to the natural world. Of course, you can’t guarantee you’ll see as many animals as you would in a vehicle covering the ground at pace, but this is surely the best way to understand the privilege it is when you meet such remarkable creatures on their home territory.
Zambia is generally reckoned to be the country that invented the walking safari and these camps are tiny. At Big Lagoon Camp in South Luangwa, for instance, there are just three chalets with verandas and huge windows overlooking the eponymous water.
When out walking we were, at times, almost surrounded (at a safe distance) by elephants, rubbed shoulders with herds of impala and zebra, and got surprisingly close to a pride of lions. Big Lagoon is not without its comforts – including great food and those cakes, somehow baked in an underground oven. Walking safaris are not, perhaps, for the faint hearted. They are, though, the ultimate escape from the modern world – no vehicles, no internet, no phone signal and no people.
From April to October, Yellow Zebra offers safaris personally designed by local experts to fit your interests. As an example, six nights in Zambia, including one night at Latitude 15 (B&B), one night at Tafika, two nights at Chikoko Tree, and two nights at Big Lagoon (full board), including safari activities, internal transfers, and international flights, costs from £4,363 per person, based on two sharing.