Swara Acacia Lodge

You stay at Swara Acacia Lodge on the edge of Swara Plains Wildlife Conservancy, forty minutes from Nairobi by road. The lodge has twenty cottages with thatched roofs, set among acacia trees where monkeys move between branches. From here you look out over twenty thousand acres of conservancy land, home to three thousand animals including giraffe, zebra, and antelope.

Game drives go out morning and evening in open vehicles, following one hundred kilometers of trails through the conservancy. You can also explore on foot or by bike, with no dangerous animals to force a guide. The land holds eight dams where birds gather, and three hundred species have been recorded here.

The restaurant serves à la carte meals with ingredients from local suppliers, and the bar mixes drinks for evenings by the fire. Families use the sandbox and climbing frame while parents watch from the terrace. The lodge takes weddings and conferences, with space for up to four hundred guests in the gardens.

The land was first set aside for conservation in the 1960s, and the lodge opened to the public in the early 2000s. It remains a family-run operation, with cottages built in materials that match the trees and earth around them.