Best Hotels & Lodges

Zulu for ‘love’, Thanda makes you do just that. You will fall in love with this authentically South African wildlife experience. Thanda Safari Lodge is known for its plushly unique bush suites, each perched on a hill overlooking the reserve. With your own private sala on stilts, plunge pool, wrap-around deck and bush boma, you probably won’t want to leave to explore anything else. But trust us - it’s worth it. On Thanda’s game drives and bush walks you will fall in love again with the diverse wildlife and best of all, you get to enjoy it all to yourself.

Sanbona Wildlife Reserve stretches across 54,000 hectares of arid and silent Little Karoo landscape. This is where San people lived for thousands of years, and where galleries of rock paintings illustrate their lives. It's a pretty inhospitable place, and yet it is rich in wildlife and indigenous flora. Tilney Manor is one of four lodges in the reserve, with interiors that are indeed manorial, combining warmth and comfort with true elegance. The food is glorious, the staff are attentive and the guest suites, just six of them, meet your every need. It's a glamorous base from which to explore this extraordinary wilderness.

*Closed for extensive refurbishment from 18 March to 20 September 2024* This well-appointed and intimate tented camp is located in Ngala Private Reserve within Timbavati, the first private nature reserve to remove the fences that separated it from its neighbour, Kruger National Park. This satellite camp to Ngala Game Lodge is set beneath giant shady trees on the banks of the seasonal Timbavati River, and is known for its Big Five and wild dog sightings. Game, walking and photographic safaris are led by expert guides and trackers, who make sure that no rock is left unturned in pursuit of the animals.

A tangle of ochre alleys, ivy-draped facades and piazzas that buzz until the small hours, Trastevere is the Rome the Romans go to. And tucked away at the quieter end of the neighbourhood, just at the foot of the Janiculum Hill, is Donna Camilla Savelli, a former 17th-century convent designed by Francesco Borromini. Named after the noblewoman who commissioned it in 1642, the building was home to Augustinian nuns for centuries before becoming a hotel. Its chequerboard marble floors, vaulted corridors and pretty gardens also featured in To Rome With Love - and in fact, the whole place really does feel like a beautifully preserved film set.

Mahogany Spring lies in a fairytale setting. Set in lovely gardens on the slopes above the tumbling waters of the Munyanga River and facing the aptly named Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, home to half the world’s endangered mountain gorillas, it's one of the nicest places to stay for gorilla treks. There's a real warmth here, and the staff and manager make sure that you have everything you require. Expect privacy, serene surroundings, clean comfort, good food and treks to remember forever.