El Karama Lodge

Family-owned El Karama Lodge is made up of eight stone-and-thatch bandas on the riverbank, two cottages at Little River Camp with floor-to-ceiling windows and one outdoor bathtub, and the Hobbit House, a family cottage with two treehouse floors of single beds tucked above the main bedroom. The lodge sits inside a 14,000-acre private conservancy on the Ewaso Nyiro River in Laikipia, Mount Kenya visible on a clear day.

Days can be spent on walking safaris, tracking lion on foot, fly camping in a suspended tree tent, or flying out to visit an elephant rehabilitation sanctuary or Ol Pejeta's rhinos. Kenya's first Bush School for children runs here, teaching spoor reading, mud casting and clay sculpting. The annual bird census the lodge takes part in has counted over 160 species in a single day. The pool is chemical-free and copper-filtered, clean enough for wildlife to drink from directly, which they do sometimes, and the whole lodge runs on solar power. Most of the food served at El Karama comes from the property's organic garden, dairy cows and free-range hens.