A tented lodge is the best of both worlds and the most popular choice we sell. The structure is a large permanent tent on a raised timber or stone platform: canvas walls and roof, a full-size bed with linen, an en-suite bathroom with a flushing toilet and a hot shower, a writing desk, and a private veranda facing the bush.
What you gain over a lodge is sound. Canvas does not shut the night out, so you fall asleep to hyena calling and wake to birds and the occasional lion somewhere out in the dark. Nothing else on safari comes close to it.
These camps are also the gentlest way to stay in a national park. Because they are canvas on platforms, they are built without concrete foundations and can be taken down leaving almost nothing behind. Most run on solar power, heat water with solar or wood-fired boilers, filter and refill drinking water on site rather than trucking in plastic bottles, and manage their waste out of the park. Many sit inside conservation concessions where your bed-night fee funds anti-poaching patrols and pays the community that owns the land — so the choice to sleep in canvas is a small piece of conservation in itself.