No crater views, but easy Crater access.
Guide Price: From: $375 To: $445
Plantation Lodge is a small privately-owned hotel with plenty of style, a small oasis of trees, beautiful gardens & thriving birdlife within a working farm, close to the entrance into the Ngorongoro forest reserve. Based in the Karatu Area, Plantation is a good option if you'd like to avoid the large lodges on the Crater Rim.
This small hotel with only 16 rooms has the comfortable and intimate feel of a well run bush home. The elegant rooms are well thought out with large beds & modern bathrooms and it's immediately obvious that the place has been designed and decorated by someone with a great eye for detail.
Here food and service are of a high standard, and the owners, Renate and Udo Marahens, who have been farming in the area for many years, have a high level of input in the day to day running of the lodge. At some 7000 ft above sea level, this has to be one of the most seductive climates - hot days and cool mornings and nights, although between July and early September there can be a fair amount of low cloud that hangs around on the edge of the highlands, making the place feel more like Scotland than Africa.
This is an excellent place to spend one or two nights between visits to Manyara and Ngorongoro which can be easily arranged from here. This is also a place from which one can easily visit Lake Eyasi for an (albeit rather long) day and it's also just a very comfortable place where you can get a total contrast to the rest of your safari.
Here you wont be seeing large animals from your bedroom, but you'll get a taste of the wonderful climate and of what life in the highlands of East Africa can be like. As well as relaxing you can take some great walks from the lodge into the surrounding farmland and the forest to nearby waterfalls, or simply relax around the spotlessly clean swimming pool.
comfortable small hotel in nice gardens with 19 rooms
From: 375 To: 445
No crater views, but easy Crater access.
Karatu is an area of fertile coffee and arable farms on the south eastern slopes of the Ngorongoro Crater. The area sits at about 7500 ft above sea level, often with it's head in the clouds, and feels lush, green and in stark contrast to the dry floor of the Rift Valley a short distance to the east. The town of Karatu itself lies on the Ngorongoro - Manyara road, but most of the small lodges that we'd recommend in this area are set in the midst of farms quite some distance from the town itself. We'd often recommend one of the lodges in Karatu, over and above the Crater Rim, as a place from which to visit the Ngorongoro Crater. The downside to this is clear - you won't be waking up to look down into the Crater from your bedroom window. However, there are plenty of upsides to staying in Karatu if sacrificing crater views isn't a deal-breaker for you. Read more?
Tanzania safaris rival a safari any other country in Africa in terms of sheer wilderness, formidable landscapes and volume of wildlife. At Natural High, we have travelled all over the country, worked in some of its best Tanzania safari camps and lodges and flown all over as bush pilots so we feel qualified to venture such opinions. Read more?
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Vanessa's 16 years in travel has seen her knowledge develop from sub-Saharan Africa into North Africa, Central and Southern America and the Galapagos. Consequently, she’s a veritable encyclopaedia of travel information and exceptionally cool, calm and collected in the face of the greatest planning demands.
At Natural High, we've had long experience putting together trips in Africa that really work. Whether it's intimate bushcamps in out of the way places, or a private lodge in one of Africa's top-billing wildlife areas, light mobile camping or remote island escapes, we know there is a lot to choose from. We're absolutely confident that we can recommend the right places for you.
