Where to stay in Tsavo: Tsavo East and Tsavo West lodges, areas and prices (2026)

Tsavo East: Voi Gate and the southern circuits

The busiest and best-served corner of Tsavo. Voi town, fourteen minutes from the gate, has fuel, ATMs and the SGR station. Sleep just outside the boundary and you pay no park fee for your arrival night.

Voi Wildlife Lodge sits on the boundary beside the gate, from $95 per person full board in April to June and $128 from July to October, with a floodlit waterhole on a public webcam. Manyatta Camp, its upmarket sister on the Voi River, gives every tent a private plunge pool and quotes on request. Red Elephant Safari Lodge is 700 metres from the gate, Zomeni Lion Hill Lodge has twelve units on the boundary hill, and Ngutuni Safari Lodge, fifteen minutes out in its own 10,000-acre sanctuary, runs drives and night drives that need no park ticket at all.

Inside the gate, Sentrim Tsavo East Camp is 11 km in and tops out at $128 full board even in October. Ndololo Camp, a twenty-tent private camp 7 km inside, and Voi Safari Lodge, cut into the escarpment with an underground hide, both quote on request. Ndololo Public Campsite, the only public campsite in Tsavo East, is a different place: a KWS site at $20 per person.

Who it suits: first-timers, train arrivals, self-drivers without a 4x4, and anyone on a short trip. The catch is traffic: Mombasa day-trip vans enter through Bachuma Gate from mid-morning, so be through Voi Gate at 06:00.

Tsavo East: Satao, Aruba and the Galana River

Satao Camp, the name most people search for, is a ring of twenty tents around a floodlit waterhole that elephants use all through the dry season. Full board runs $135 per person in April and May, $189 from January to March, June and November, $243 from July to October and $270 over the festive period. It has its own airstrip.

Ashnil Aruba Lodge points every window at Aruba Dam, which has held water since 1952, from $100 green season to $137 high season full board. Its Ground Package, $188 to $226 per person, adds return transfers from Voi SGR station and a shared game drive a day, so you can arrive by train with no car.

Further north the Galana River runs past Lugard's Falls and the Yatta Plateau. Galdessa Camp (five rooms, ten guests) and Galdessa Little (three rooms, six guests) belong to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and are let only as whole camps, quoted per camp per night. You bring all your own food and drink and the resident chef cooks it, you need your own car and driver or a charter to Lugard Falls South, park fees are paid to KWS separately, and you must be a current foster parent of one of the Trust's orphan elephants. In exchange you get private visits to the Trust's Voi orphan unit.

Galana Crocodile Camp, further east towards Sala Gate, is the big camp on this stretch: 22 tents, 14 cottages and a restaurant built out over the river. It has no website and publishes no rate, so ask whether a quote is bed and breakfast or full board. It is roughly 90 to 110 km from Malindi (our own pages give 93 km to the camp and 107 km to Sala Gate itself), the nearest bed inside the park if you come from the north coast.

Tsavo East: the Northern Area and Ithumba

North of the Galana is the part of Tsavo East almost nobody reaches by road. The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust runs Ithumba Hill, built into granite above the plain, Ithumba Camp at the foot of the mountain, and the small Ithumba Private, each for up to eight guests and each with access to the Ithumba orphan unit. The same rules apply as at Galdessa: your own provisions, a hired car and driver or a charter to Ithumba airstrip, park fees on top and fostering an orphan first.

For campers, the Northern Tsavo East Special Campsites at Makoka and Roka cost $35 per person plus a KSh 10,000 weekly reservation fee, with nothing provided. Just outside the boundary in the Tsavo Triangle, Kamungi Banda is a four-bedroom community-run house for up to twelve, twenty minutes from Mtito Andei, where you bring the food and a resident cook is included.

Who it suits: return visitors and groups who want a whole property to themselves, for three nights or more.

Tsavo West: Kilaguni, Mzima Springs and the Chyulu side

Most Tsavo West beds are in the north, between Mtito Andei Gate (233 km, about three hours from Nairobi), Mzima Springs and the Chyulu Hills. Safarilink lands here daily from Wilson in fifty minutes. Self-drivers need a 4x4 on the lava.

Kilaguni Serena Safari Lodge is the landmark, volcanic stone around a waterhole beside Kilaguni airstrip. Serena quotes per room, from $212 for a Standard King to $431 for the Kilaguni Suite, which makes it better value for two than it looks; day drives cost $70 and night drives $85 per person extra, and the board basis is not stated beside the rates. Finch Hattons is the top end, seventeen tented suites over spring-fed pools, from $990 per person per night sharing all-inclusive with its own airstrip.

Severin Safari Camp, unfenced between Mzima Springs and the Tsavo River, has a spa; its rate display labels the figures in shillings though they read like dollars, so confirm price and basis in writing. Kitani Bandas, 1.5 km away, are eight self-catering cottages for up to three, booked through Severin. KWS's own Kamboyo Guest House at park headquarters sleeps eight for $300 per house, Goss House sleeps four for $250, and the Komboyo and Chyulu public campsites are $20 per person.

Who it suits: fly-in travellers, landscape and birding people, and families or groups who want a KWS house.

Tsavo West: Ngulia, Ziwani and Lake Jipe

Ngulia Safari Lodge, opened in 1969 on the Ndawe escarpment, has a restaurant over a floodlit waterhole and the best view in Tsavo West. It is state-owned by Kenya Safari Lodges & Hotels and publishes no rate card. In November and December night migrants come down on the escarpment in their thousands.

Voyager Ziwani, Heritage Hotels' tented camp in the quiet far west, sells packages with full board and a bush walk, runs a children's club and has night drives on its sanctuary; rates on request, park fees extra. In the far south, the Lake Jipe public campsite, one of the three Tsavo West Public Campsites, is the best birding base in either park.

Between the parks: Taita Hills, Lumo and the highway

Salt Lick Safari Lodge and Taita Hills Safari Resort & Spa are sister properties in the private Taita Hills Wildlife Sanctuary next to Tsavo West, near Maktau. Salt Lick has 96 rondavels on stilts above a waterhole and takes children from five; Taita Hills is the conventional hotel with a spa. Neither publishes a current rate card on its own site, neither has been run by Sarova since 2020 (Salt Lick is now run by Travelbook Hotels), and drives there are on the private sanctuary, so ask the lodge whether a sanctuary fee applies instead of the KWS ticket.

Lions Bluff Lodge sits on a cliff in the Lumo Community Wildlife Sanctuary, from $1,075 per person in shoulder season and $1,235 in peak on its Ground Package with meals and shared drives, plus a $57 per adult nightly levy. Man Eaters Lodge, on the Tsavo River at Mtito Andei, is 2 km from Tsavo West and 10 km from Tsavo East, a natural hinge night. North-west of Tsavo West towards Amboseli, ol Donyo Lodge is the most expensive bed in the region at $1,590 per person, with conservation fees, drinks and activities included.

Luxury and exclusive-use

The top of Tsavo is small. Finch Hattons is from $990 per person per night sharing, so $1,980 for a suite for two, covering all meals and drinks, twice-daily drives, airstrip transfers, one local excursion, laundry and Wi-Fi. Agent price lists we saw in September put mid-June to mid-October nearer $1,450, so confirm your dates with the camp, and ask whether the $80 park fee is inside the rate. Lions Bluff Lodge is $1,075 to $1,235 per person plus levy, and ol Donyo Lodge $1,590 with conservation fees included.

The exclusive-use camps are a different model: Galdessa Camp, Galdessa Little and the three Ithumba properties are let whole and self-provisioned, and the Trust quotes per camp.

How to book: direct, online or through a specialist

KWS accommodation, meaning every campsite and the Kamboyo and Goss houses, is booked only with KWS, by email to reservations@kws.go.ke or on +254 113 434 304. Special campsites go through the park warden, and park fees are prepaid on KWSPay.

Many private lodges take bookings directly: Satao Camp by email, Severin Safari Camp through an online booking engine, Kilaguni Serena on Serena's site. Several do not: Ndololo Camp, Galana Crocodile Camp and Red Elephant Safari Lodge have no working official website (Red Elephant's look-alike domain is a parked advertising page), so book them through a Kenyan agent or by phone. For Salt Lick Safari Lodge and Taita Hills Safari Resort, ignore old Sarova links. The Sheldrick camps book through the Trust after you have fostered an orphan.

A specialist helps when you combine both parks or need a vehicle and driver. We do not take bookings ourselves. If you send a booking request through this site, it goes to a safari specialist we work with, who may pay us a commission.

When to book

July to October is high season on every rate card here, with September and October the peak for game viewing, and Kenyan school holidays add demand in August. Small properties go first: Finch Hattons has seventeen suites, Zomeni Lion Hill Lodge twelve units that book out in July and October, and each Sheldrick camp takes one party at a time. For those, book as soon as your dates are firm, ideally several months ahead.

The festive period from about 20 December to early January carries the highest rates of the year at Satao Camp and Lions Bluff Lodge, as the coast fills. April and May are the cheapest months, Satao at half its Christmas price, and you can usually book weeks rather than months ahead. See our best time to visit page.