Sasaab

Sasaab is perched on the edge of a river valley in the Westgate Community Conservancy, just outside Samburu National Reserve in Kenya's Northern Frontier District. Its architecture blends Swahili and Moroccan design around the problem of African heat, and each of the eleven canvas-sided rooms is over 100 square metres with a private plunge pool and views across to the jagged peaks of Mount Kenya. The position above the river means herds of elephant come to bathe below.

The area holds an astounding density of wildlife, including the Samburu Special Five found nowhere else: Beisa oryx, reticulated giraffe, Grevy's zebra, gerenuk and Somali ostrich. Sasaab sits beside one of the largest remaining populations of the endangered Grevy's zebra, of which only around 2,500 individuals survive.

Sasaab is recognised as a Global Ecosphere Retreat by The Long Run, and was built as a community tourism project with the Samburu of Westgate. Village visits, school and clinic visits and market days are arranged with the village elders, and much of the lodge team comes from nearby villages.

Rates are fully inclusive of all meals and drinks including house wines, beers and spirits, game drives, bush meals and sundowners, transfers from Sasaab Airstrip, laundry, guided walks and camel walks, rooftop stargazing beds and fly camping by prior arrangement, and the Samburu manyatta and community project visits. Champagne, luxury spirits, Spasaab treatments, quad bikes, road transfers and the daily park and conservation fees are excluded. Minimum stay two nights.