01Old-school safari · Masai Mara
&Beyond Bateleur Camp
Old-school safari in Kenya's Masai Mara: fireside evenings, a hot-air balloon at first light, a lion hunt tracked at night, and Out of Africa over the next hill.
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Kenya
One camp in the Masai Mara, and it is here on purpose: fireside evenings, a hot-air balloon at first light, a lion hunt tracked at night, and Out of Africa over the next hill. The first Kenya place on the list. Not the last.
&Beyond Bateleur Camp, Masai Mara · Photo courtesy of andBeyond
There is one place on this page, and it is here on purpose. Landing in the Masai Mara felt like stepping into a sepia-toned photograph, and &Beyond Bateleur Camp is unapologetically romantic about it: fireside evenings, and a sense that time has politely slowed down.
Just over the next hill is the filming location for Out of Africa, which makes the setting feel even more cinematic than it already did. From camp we traded tyres for a wicker basket and drifted over the Mara in a hot-air balloon at first light, watching the herds stitch patterns across the savannah. Another night we tracked a lion hunt in the dark: spotlights cutting through the black, zebra yelping warnings somewhere behind us. Raw, intense, and a useful reminder that none of this is a theme park.
Africa is even more impressive when she knows you are not in a rush. From our stay at Bateleur
One is a beginning, not a shortfall. Bateleur is the first Kenya property on the list because we stayed there and it was exceptional. More will follow as they are found and vetted, and not before. Until then, this is the one we can vouch for, and the line beneath its name is the reason why.
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Tell us who is travelling and when. Bateleur is the one Kenya camp we can vouch for first-hand today; we will tell you honestly whether it should anchor your trip, and what to pair it with across the border in Tanzania. We crossed it ourselves.