Elephant Bedroom Camp

Elephant Bedroom Camp lives up to its name. The camp is unfenced, sits inside the Samburu National Reserve on the Ewaso Nyiro River, and the resident elephant herds walk through it on most days, which is exactly why guests come. Twelve tents are spread along the riverbank under doum palms and acacias, each raised on a wooden deck with a private plunge pool that birds and the occasional elephant treat as their own. Interiors are relaxed rather than showy, natural canvas and timber lifted by bright Samburu textiles, with an en suite bathroom, hot water and a daybed on the deck. The elevated lounge and dining rooms look out over the water, breakfast and lunch are laid on the riverbank and dinner is a candlelit four course affair, and in between there is very little to do except watch the river. Game drives in Samburu deliver the special northern species, the reticulated giraffe, Grevys zebra, gerenuk, Beisa oryx and Somali ostrich, along with more than 900 elephants and 450 bird species. It is a genuinely well priced way to stay in the heart of the reserve.