Sanctuary Retreats

Boasting one of Africa’s most diverse portfolios of small and medium-sized boutique lodges, Sanctuary Retreats started life in Kenya in 1999 with the opening of Sanctuary Olonana in the heart of the Masai Mara Game Reserve, on the very stretch of river where the climactic scene of the movie Out of Africa was filmed. Today it also operates lodges in Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Botswana and South Africa, as well as running river expeditions on the Nile, Yangtze and Irrawaddy.

Committed to conservation and responsible tourism, Sanctuary Retreats has always strived to build enduring and mutualistic relationships with local communities in its areas of operation. It supports around 20 carefully selected collaborative community and conservation projects, ranging from the Women’s Bike Workshop in Botswana, Uganda and Tanzania, to a Safe Water for Schools Initiative for students in parts of Tanzania, Kenya and Zambia.

Each of Sanctuary’s lodges boasts a strongly individual design and character, but all combine sumptuous stylings and finishing with compelling wilderness settings, in keeping with the company’s guiding “Luxury, Naturally” philosophy.

In addition to lodges in Kenya’s Masai Mara and Laikipia Plateau, Sanctuary’s East African properties include a stunning lodge set in Uganda’s forested Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, a superb venue for tracking mountain gorillas and birdwatching. More conventional safari lodges are situated in Tanzania’s Serengeti and Tarangire National Park, as well as in the rim of the peerless Ngorongoro Crater.

Other lodges are sited in and around Botswana’s Okavango Delta, Moremi Game Reserve and Chobe National Park, and on the Zambian bank of the Zambezi just above Victoria Falls. It also has a lodge in what is arguably the continent’s top malaria-free Big 5 safari destination: South Africa’s Madikwe Game Reserve.