Saruni Samburu

The view is insane. The sky at night has hundreds of stars visible to the naked eye. Once your eyes adjust, you can see thousands. I stayed in 2A. The room is huge and had its own separate living room. Balcony is huge. Indoor and outdoor showers had great water pressure. One negative is the balcony is directly in the sun for the majority of the day with no shade, and the bedroom itself is several degrees hotter than outside in the evening. There are 2 fans which help mitigate this. Largest negative is I have never seen so many bugs in my life, but you’re in the middle of nowhere so that’s to be expected. The service is fantastic. Rose (waitress) was flawless. The food was also very good. Some meals were much better than others, but overall, the food was good. The meatball pasta was excellent and better than the one I had at Eagle View. Guide was good. I did miss Kampala, but Emmanuel was an excellent driver. Very good at finding game. The WiFi was excellent in the rooms, but the camp is very spacious and there’s no WiFi in the other areas. Wild and Eagle view are small enough to where you can walk quickly for WiFi, and both have signal. There is no signal at Samburu and I found myself not enjoying the 2 amazing pools as much as I wanted due to needing signal/WiFi to work from my phone. The selling point of this camp is the camp itself. Built into the cliffside, there’s nothing else like it. The night sky is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. I would 100% recommend staying here at least 1 night for anyone who visits Samburu just to experience the views (both day and night).

Put simply, the short time that i stayed at Saruni Samburu was not enough! The views were breathtaking and the quiet ambience was lovely and comforting. The staff here are very well versed with the guests needs and preferences. Stefano, our waiter did an excellent job helping cater towards our families dietary requirements. Emanuel, our safari guide, is a skilled tracker who enabled us to have the best view of even the rearest animals (we got great pics!) Our greatest compliments to the Chef; the food was delicious every time. The villas are beautiful and the house keeping team did a spectacular job making our villa feel warm and welcoming every evening when we returned from the days activities. Overall Saruni Basecamp is a wonderful experience with beautiful atmosphere and its exclusivity really makes the stay so much better! We all really enjoyed learning about the Samburu culture while staying here and I will be sure to return. Thank you Saruni Basecamp.

Our family of five enjoyed three nights and days at the lovely Saruni Samburu lodge. Setting is magnificent and accommodations beautiful. Staff was friendly and attentive, mostly comprised of local Samburus. Special thanks to Lizzy who retrieved camera left in jeep, brought coffee before 6 am and found needle and thread for a repair task. We learned that the lodge is deeply involved with local community in preserving both their way of live, wildlife and the environment. Highly recommend visit to the Reteti elephant sanctuary, we loved seeing the orphaned elephants (plus three giraffes and an Eland) close up and learning about co-existence of wildlife and pastoralist tribes.

An incredibly beautiful stay at Saruni. The Villas are built into the natural rock and feel like an extension of the outdoors with large open archways and netted windows throughout, allowing natural breeze and sounds of the outdoors into the home. Villas are spacious and have private outdoor showers, outdoor relaxing spaces with chairs and yoga mats, and small fridge for cold drinks. Also large indoor bathroom with shower, tub, flushing toilet and running water. There are 2 gorgeous outdoor pools and excellent masseuse. The food is excellent and the staff are attentive and friendly. We got to experience a special Samburu dance to celebrate the new year. Getting here is via a small plane to local airstrip, then 20 min drive to the lodge. Would recommend this to adventurous travelers who are looking g for a luxurious but also authentic travel experience.

The Samburu location is incredible for views of mountains all around. Although the weather was extremely hot, and the camps felt hot as well, there were very few bugs so that was good. The main area is also open to all the elements and felt they were lacking fans. The pools were cool so the refreshing dip after the drives were the best way to cool down. The top pool needs a renovation but had the best panoramic views, the lower pool was done nicely but was a long walk from our villa. ||The safari was amazing and we saw all of the animals (thanks to our amazing guide Ema (Emmanuel)), but because of the dry season, the rivers were dry so we had to drive a long distance into the reserve to see the animals along the river. Might be best visiting right after rainy season so you have animals in the concervancy and view them from the top of the mountain. ||We loved all of the food that the brilliant chef Evans and his co-chef prepared for us, I would give that 5 stars for every meal we had. He customized to our liking and went out of the way to make every meal special. ||One of our favorite people who truly made our trip extra special was our server and friend, Stefano. He was so wonderful to get to know and went really out of his way to make each of our meals special and memorable. Another person who was always so lovely was Rantis, she had a wonderful tranquility with how she always interacted with us. ||Overall the entire team including Daniel and the rest were such a pleasure to meet, they are some of the kindest people we have met. ||The rooms were nicely done, but again, were really hot, especially when they would close off the windows for the night, it seemed a bit muggy inside the room. And definitely request towels to be changed, i killed a small insect in the bathroom with one of the hand towels and threw the towels on the floor that we wanted to replaced, but they were put back on the stands for us to use. This was the only negative of this place. ||Overall, thanks to Ema and Stefano for making our trip incredible, we really appreciated their patience with all of our demands and the hospitality we received from them and the rest of the staff.

Saruni Samburu is a luxury Villa that's built into the side of a hill. The accommodations are top notch and the staff is incredible. Do not miss an opportunity to do all of the safaris because you'll see amazing wildlife. Even the drive up to the Villa is an adventure as you go through rocks and hills in your utility vehicle. ||Rose took amazing care of us each day and made sure we had everything we needed. Joseph was our driver and was very knowledgeable and skilled at finding the animals. He also took us to a Bush breakfast. That was unbelievable. The views are breathtaking and the wildlife is amazing. ||We learned a lot about Samburu culture from both Rose and Joseph and all of the people that worked there. We went to a local village to see what the home looked like and how some of the villagers have lived. Everybody was very hospitable and eager to share information about their culture. ||Elephants and giraffes are everywhere. You turn a corner and there's a giraffe staring you in the face. It's amazing. ||The Villa itself was gorgeous. In the evening with all of the windows open. You have a Cool breeze flowing through. There are actually two pools on site. The room has everything you need including sustainable amenities like soaps and lotions. The food is also amazing. We asked for some additional African items because the usual fair is pretty Continental. They offered a African evening where you got to sample some of the local Kenyan food. That was fantastic.||We were lucky to meet a person who was connected to the base camp company. She explained to us how the conservancy came about and how the Villa supports local people. It was fascinating. We were very lucky to receive additional information on the samburu camp.

My husband and I came to Saruni Samburu for part of our anniversary trip in early December and it was one of the most special parts of our entire trip. The rooms and views of this place are insane and the service by the staff is simply unmatched. Not only was the entire staff courteous and accommodating, they were so genuinely kind and welcoming. We felt so at home and at peace here. The delicious food, the stars at night!!!, waking up to see the elephants drinking by the watering hole, the breathtaking sunsets, and of course, all the different animals we got to see were just some of our favorite parts that make this place so incredible. ||We were especially grateful to Wilson, our driver for our stay. Wilson has a calm and kind energy, knows everything about the land and the animals (we learned so much from him!), had eyes like a hawk — nothing got past him, and you can tell that he has a real respect and love for the animals. He really made an effort to make every game drive special for us. He felt like a friend by the end.||We also so appreciated Saitoti, who looked after us during all of our meals. He was very easy to talk to, endearing and he really made us feel cared for. He never made us feel like anything was too much trouble. I enjoyed all of his many napkin folding creations for every meal. He even taught me how to make one on our last night. So cute! ||The Samburu region itself is just a stunning environment that has an intimacy I don’t think you quite get in some of the more popular areas in E. Africa. It is really magical here. I highly recommend also doing the RETETI Sanctuary visit. It was so inspiring and cool.||Thank you to the rest of the team members who worked behind the scenes to help make our stay so comfortable and beautiful <3 ||If we had the means, I would want to come here every year. Looking forward to coming back in the future!

At SARUNI SAMBURU you find one of the most committed and friendliest team of very young people! On top of spectacular safari game drives and an epic view, you are bound to make an everlasting connection with the people that do everything to make your stay there memorable. One of Kenya's best kept secret, Saruni Samburu!