Faru Faru Lodge

Tanzania > Serengeti and Surrounding Areas > Serengeti Grumeti Reserves > Faru Faru Lodge
Other places to stay: Sabora Tented Camp, Sasakwa Lodge

It's built in a wooded area not far from the Grumeti River, so pretty much always within reach of good game viewing and at times (particularly June and July) it's right at the heart of the action as the migration comes to town on its way north.

The immaculately constructed rooms are of canvas, with vast windows and pale interiors making the  place feel light and airy.  The bathroom feels substantial with a stone wall to stop any animals joining you in the free standing claw-foot bath or your state of the art power shower.

The camp overlooks not one but two waterholes, both of which are pumped attracting plenty of game including zebra, wildebeest, waterbuck, elephant and warthogs and the birdlife is excellent too. So in an ideal world you can wake up in the morning with your tea or coffee and just watch the game by the waterholes without even getting out of bed.

There are two swimming pools, some fairly opulent sitting areas including a lovely upper deck, a spa treatment room, shop and nowadays even a gym. The lady in charge of spa treatments is absolutely fantastic and was incredibly attentive. 

The camp itself is simply amazing. This must be about as good as it gets for honeymooners and would make for a nicely indulgent ending to any safari, whilst still retaining game on tap. Food generally at both Sabora Tented Camp and at Faru Faru is of an extremely high standard with decent wine served.

There is also a new 4 bed family suite which would be close to perfection for any family wanting to combine safari with a spoiling degree of comfort. You can certainly banish all thoughts of Swallows and Amazon from this joint.

There is nothing else in Tanzania like these camps and there has obviously been a huge investment in making them the most luxurious camps. There is definitely a very strong South African approach to the way they are run. Finding non-SA managers is a problem as the approach to running lodges is so different to that in East Africa. However, everything works absolutely faultlessly and it is all super efficient and very sophisticated.

The Singita Grumeti Reserves is a truly beautiful area and a real wilderness and it now has the wildebeest migration on the reserve for 3-4 months of the year. Being at a relatively high altitude means that the evenings are much cooler and there are relatively fewer insects around.

You need to be careful what you combine with a place like this but we reckon somewhere like Sand Rivers Selous would make for a great combination, as well as the Ngorongoro Crater Lodge. Popular beach combinations would be Mnemba Island Lodge and The Palms, or possibly Manda Bay up in Lamu. We would also consider combining the Nomad's Serengeti Mara Camp with Faru Faru to experience both ends of the spectrum in terms of grit and glitz.

Also worth mentioning that camps and game drives in this area can suffer from occasional tsetse issues. This varies hugely and in our opinion is definitely not a reason to miss out either the area or the camp, but we think it's helpful to flag up the issue and do ask us for any latest updates if you're concerned.

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At Natural High, we've all lived and worked in Africa, so our knowledge is born of hands-on experience rather than simply visiting on holiday. We can't over-stress how worthwhile it is to take a few minutes to call us. We're not in the business churning out thousands of packages so if you'd like to discuss things in detail, take a few minutes and call Catherine, Fiona, Vanessa or Alex on 1747 898104.close