37 places to stay
Thirty-seven places to stay across both Tsavo parks, from a $20 KWS campsite to exclusive-use camps on the Galana. Because Tsavo East and Tsavo West are separately ticketed, the first line of every entry tells you which park you are actually in.
Tsavo has more genuinely Kenyan-owned accommodation than most big-name safari destinations, and the Voi Gate cluster is where you find it. Look for the green Locally owned badge, or the KWS badge if you want your money going straight to the park authority. Two ownership corrections worth knowing: Finch Hattons belongs to Virgin Limited Edition now, and Salt Lick and Taita Hills have not been run by Sarova Hotels since 2020, although plenty of booking sites still say otherwise. Galdessa and the Ithumba camps are run by the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, so a night there funds the elephant orphan units you visit.
37 places to stay
The best-known camp in central Tsavo East, built in a circle around a waterhole that elephants treat as a daily commitment. Rates swing hard by season, from $135 in the April rains to $270 at Christmas, so the month you pick changes the bill by half.
Aruba Dam has held water since 1952 and it pulls elephant, lion, buffalo and hippo in daily, which is why this lodge points every window at it. It is also the one property that publishes a package including return transfers from Voi's SGR station, making it the obvious pick for a train arrival.
A pioneer-styled camp eleven kilometres inside Voi Gate, mixing canvas tents with a few solid stone rooms for anyone who wants walls. Rates top out at $128 full board even in October, which makes it one of the better-value beds actually inside the park.
Tsavo East's single public campsite, on the Voi River a short drive inside the main gate, with running water, showers and a kitchen area. At $20 a night it is the cheapest way to sleep inside the park, provided you have a vehicle and your own tent.
Two special campsites in the Northern Area, booked exclusively so you have the site to yourself. There is nothing there at all: no water, no toilet, no shade structure, which is exactly the point for anyone properly equipped.
Five undeveloped campsites in the southern sector, including one near Lugard's Falls, each taken for exclusive use by a single party. Booking runs through the park warden in advance and you must be entirely self-sufficient, water included.
A large Kenyan-owned lodge sitting right on the boundary beside Voi Gate, which means you can arrive late without paying a park fee for the night. Its floodlit waterhole streams online, so you can see the traffic for yourself before committing, and rates start at $95 full board in the green season.
The best-known lodge in Tsavo West, built from volcanic stone around a waterhole, with Kilimanjaro filling the horizon behind it when the cloud lifts. It sits next to the only airstrip in either park with an IATA code, so the fly-in transfer is a two-minute drive, and it runs entirely on solar.
The most expensive bed anywhere near Tsavo, in the Chyulu Hills on Mbirikani Ranch, which is owned by four thousand Maasai who take the revenue. Eight suites with rooftop star beds and Kilimanjaro in front of them, plus horseback safaris and waterhole hides, all inside a rate that already covers conservation fees.
KWS's own eight-bed guest house at Kamboyo headquarters, let as a whole unit rather than by the room. For a family or a group of friends with a vehicle it is the cheapest proper roof inside either park, though you cook for yourselves and bring everything with you.
The second of the two KWS self-catering houses in Tsavo West, taking four people for a flat nightly rate. There is nothing like it in Tsavo East, where KWS runs campsites only, so if you want a government-run roof it has to be the western park.
Three shared campsites covering very different corners of Tsavo West: Komboyo near headquarters, Chyulu in the north-west, and Lake Jipe on the Tanzanian border. At $20 a night they cost less than a quarter of the daily park fee, and the Jipe site puts you on a lake that holds a large share of the park's 600-plus bird species.
Seven undeveloped sites scattered across Tsavo West, each taken for exclusive use by one party at a time. There are no facilities of any kind, the reservation runs through the park warden with a weekly site fee on top, and you carry your own water, fuel and food.
Built into the face of an escarpment so the whole lodge looks out over the plain, with an underground hide that puts you at ground level with whatever is drinking below. It is state-owned rather than KWS-run, which confuses a lot of guides, and it is one of the few places in Tsavo East offering a proper photographic hide.
The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust took Galdessa over and runs it as a whole-camp booking for ten people, on a stretch of the Galana that faces the Yatta Plateau. Guests get private access to the Trust's Voi orphan unit, which no commercial camp can offer, and the money goes back into the conservation work.
The smaller half of the Galdessa pair, three rooms under doum palms on the same stretch of river. Families and groups often take both camps together, which gives you sixteen beds and the entire riverbank to yourselves.
Built into granite above the Northern Area, the part of Tsavo East almost nobody reaches by road. The draw is exclusive access to the Ithumba elephant orphan unit, where the ex-orphans come back to the mud bath, and there is essentially no other vehicle traffic up here.
The ground-level counterpart to Ithumba Hill, tucked at the foot of the mountain where the bush closes in around the tents. Leopard and wild dog both work this area, and the same orphan-unit access applies.
The smallest of the three Sheldrick properties in the Northern Area, set among kopjes under one enormous baobab. It is usually taken together with Ithumba Hill when a family needs more space than either offers alone.
A twenty-tent camp in the riverine forest seven kilometres inside Voi Gate, close enough for a short first afternoon in the park. Do not confuse it with the KWS Ndololo public campsite nearby: this is a private camp that happens to share the name.
The big camp on the eastern Galana, with a restaurant deck hanging over the river and hippo below it most evenings. If you are driving in from Malindi or Watamu through Sala Gate, this is the closest bed inside the park.
A small in-park lodge in the Voi sector that keeps a low profile: it is on the KWS register but publishes almost nothing about itself. Worth an enquiry if the better-known Voi-sector properties are full, but confirm everything in writing first.
The upmarket sister to Voi Wildlife Lodge, with a private plunge pool at every one of its twenty-odd tents and long views to three hill ranges. It sits a kilometre from the Voi Park airstrip, which makes it an easy fly-in base for the busiest corner of Tsavo East.
A family-owned lodge in a 10,000-acre private sanctuary on the eastern edge of Tsavo East, fifteen minutes from the main gate. Because the drives happen inside the conservancy, you skip the $80 daily conservation fee entirely, which is the single biggest saving available anywhere on this list.
Seven hundred metres from Voi Gate, which makes it the nearest bed to the busiest entrance in Tsavo East and an easy base if you want to be through the gate at six. Nineteen units, a waterhole in front of the verandas, and Kenyan ownership.
A twelve-unit owner-run lodge on the hill known as Mlima ya Simba, right against the park boundary at Voi Gate. Under eight kilometres from the SGR station, so it works well if you are arriving on the morning Inter-County train from Mombasa. Use the full name when booking, since there is an unrelated Sarova Lion Hill at Lake Nakuru.
An owner-run place on its own 5,000-acre sanctuary a couple of kilometres off the highway, fifteen kilometres short of Voi. Twenty-four garden bandas, one suite with a rooftop terrace, and a campsite for anyone travelling with their own kit.
The obvious stop if you are doing both parks, one kilometre off the A109 at Mtito Andei where the railway crossed the Tsavo River in 1898. It keeps a small museum on that history, and every one of its thirty-one tents faces the river the story happened on.
A four-bedroom self-catering banda run by the Kamungi Conservancy, a community organisation on Tsavo East's northern edge, twenty minutes from Mtito Andei. You take the whole house for up to twelve people and bring your own food, with a cook already in place and community-led experiences on offer.
Tsavo West's flagship, seventeen tented suites elevated over spring pools beneath the Chyulu Hills, now owned by Virgin Limited Edition rather than the independent operation older guides describe. Safarilink's daily flight from Nairobi Wilson lands at its own airstrip in fifty minutes.
Opened in May 1969 on the edge of the Ndawe escarpment, with the restaurant built out over a floodlit waterhole so the evening game viewing happens while you eat. It is state-owned like Voi Safari Lodge, unfussy, and the escarpment setting is the best of any lodge in Tsavo West.
An unfenced camp between Mzima Springs and the Tsavo River, which means animals walk through it and you get an escort back to your tent after dark. There is a spa and a waterhole, and the published rates need a phone call to pin down because the website's currency label does not match its numbers.
Eight self-catering cottages a kilometre and a half from Severin, letting you sleep in the middle of Tsavo West at a fraction of the tented-camp price. You bring your own food and cook it, but you get a room steward and the run of Severin's pool and gym, which is an unusual combination.
Heritage Hotels' camp in the Ziwani sector, the far western corner of Tsavo West where visitor numbers thin out considerably. The group's reputation rests on family programming, so it is one of the more child-friendly options in a park that is otherwise short of them.
A clifftop lodge in the Lumo Community Wildlife Sanctuary, the corridor of community land between Tsavo West and Tsavo East. It is run by a safari company but the land is the community's, and drives here fall outside KWS ticketing entirely.
One of the most photographed buildings in Kenya: ninety-six rondavels on stilts above a waterhole, joined by raised walkways, so the animals come to you. It is in the private Taita Hills sanctuary next to Tsavo West rather than inside the national park, and it is run by Travelbook Hotels now, not Sarova.
The larger, more conventional half of the Taita Hills pair, with sixty-two rooms and a spa, on the private sanctuary next to Tsavo West. It is where most itineraries put the first night before moving guests to Salt Lick, and the surrounding area carries visible remnants of the First World War East African campaign.
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Every price on this page is in US dollars.
Indicative 2026 rates gathered in July 2026 from operators' own rate cards and the official KWS tariffs. Watch the pricing basis: most Tsavo camps quote per person per night sharing, while Serena, the KWS guest houses and the self-catering bandas quote per room or per unit, so two sets of numbers are not directly comparable. KWS conservation fees are extra almost everywhere at $80 per adult per park per day, plus KSh 600 for a car under six seats.
Facilities and activities come from each property's own website, read in July 2026. We only record what that property's own page states. A blank means we could not check it, not that it is missing. Filtering on a facility shows only what we confirmed, and tells you how many places we could not check.
