Hippo Trails Camp

Hippo Trails Camp stands on a low rise on the slopes of Banagi Hill in the central Serengeti, twenty one kilometres north of the Seronera airstrip and next to the Retima picnic site. Twelve canvas tents are set on raised timber platforms and strung along the rise so each one looks out over open grass towards the hills, with the Orangi and Seronera river country falling away below. The camp holds a special campsite licence and runs year round, which in practice means a camp built light on the ground but equipped like a permanent one.\n\nThe position is the reason to come. Retima, where the two rivers meet, holds hundreds of hippo and a good number of large crocodile and is a short drive away. The Seronera river valley half an hour south carries the densest leopard population in the park, with resident lion on the kopjes and cheetah out on the plains to the south. The camp also sits on the corridor running north towards Lobo and Kogatende, so it is quieter than the cluster of properties around Seronera itself. Game is resident through the year because the rivers hold water, which is why the camp stays open in every month. June to October is the easiest viewing, the migration passes through the centre around April to June and again from November, and the green months are the best for birds.\n\nThe tents are generous and plain in a good way. Natural wood floors under sisal matting, a bed under netting, a sitting area with chairs and a table, a writing desk with a charging point, luggage racks, and an extended deck outside with safari chairs. Every tent has its own bathroom built in stone with a flush toilet, a large vanity and a shower with running hot and cold water, all of it heated by solar. Ten tents are doubles or twins and two are family tents. There is no laundry: the camp asks guests to conserve water, and says so plainly, which is more honest than most.\n\nThe heart of the camp is a raised common tent split into a dining room and a lounge and joined by a veranda facing the hills, with a fire lit outside most evenings and wifi that reaches the public areas. Food is the house signature. The managing director of the group trained as a chef and still works the menus with each camp team: a full buffet breakfast with eggs to order, lunch boxes for the long days out, and a sit down dinner. Service is Tanzanian run, warm and personal rather than slick. This is a camp for travellers who want to be properly inside the park and close to the Seronera action, who would rather have position, hot water and good food than designer interiors, and who can live without laundry for a few nights.