Ngorongoro Serena Safari Lodge

The lodge sits on the rim of Ngorongoro Crater at around 2,300 metres, looking down into one of the largest intact volcanic calderas in the world. The buildings are constructed from the local boulder stone and covered in indigenous creepers, connected by timber walkways between the trees. Inside, the walls carry painted cave-art imagery alongside Maasai iron spears and beadwork; the design reads as a deliberate reference to the archaeology and the communities of the conservation area.

Seventy-five rooms are spread along the rim — standard twins, doubles and triples, plus the Kimba Suite, which has a king bed, walk-in mosquito net, separate sitting room with a stocked minibar, and a stone balcony with an open view of the crater below. Every room has its own stone-enclosed balcony.

The crater floor holds more than twenty-five thousand animals, including the black rhinoceros. You reach it by descending a steep winding road; game drives there are run at an additional cost, and the lodge can arrange a bush breakfast or picnic lunch on the floor for groups making a full day of the descent. Two guided walks run from the lodge itself — a ninety-minute nature walk along the rim with a resident naturalist, and a two-hour highland hike escorted by an armed ranger through grassland and montane forest, where Maasai cattlemen also graze their herds.

Day trips to Olduvai Gorge and to Empakaai Crater — a six-kilometre-wide caldera containing a soda lake used by flamingos as a breeding site — run as off-site excursions at an additional cost. The main restaurant has a stone fireplace and serves local and international food; a summer bush dinner takes place on the crater rim at sunset.