Plan your safari
A bush breakfast table set on open golden grassland under a cloud-filled sky, the kind of setting private conservancies allow

Private Conservancies in Africa

A private conservancy safari: fewer vehicles, wilder freedom, and safaris that fund the land they cross.

Plan your safari Highlights

A private conservancy is wildlife land owned or leased from local communities and run by a handful of camps, with strict caps on beds and vehicles. The game viewing matches the famous national parks next door, because the animals do not read boundaries. The difference is that you share a sighting with one or two vehicles instead of twenty.

Conservancies also unlock what parks forbid: off-road driving to sit with a leopard, night drives for the nocturnal shift, and walking safaris with your guide. And because your nightly rate pays lease fees directly to landowning families, a conservancy safari is conservation working exactly as it should. Kenya pioneered the model around the Maasai Mara; Tanzania’s private concessions, Botswana’s Delta concessions and South Africa’s private reserves follow the same logic.

Guests dining outdoors beside safari vehicles in the bush
Breakfast where the morning drive ended

Highlights of Private Conservancies

Exclusive traversing

Above all, vehicle caps mean sightings are yours, often literally alone with the animals.

Off-road & night drives

Follow the action off the track, then meet the nocturnal cast after dark.

Walking safaris

Cross the land on foot with armed professional guides, which most parks forbid.

Community ownership

Lease fees flow to local families, so wildlife is worth more alive than lost.

Where the conservancy model shines

However, every safari country does private land differently. These are the four we rate highest, and how each one works.

Eastern Africa

Kenya

The pioneer. Naboisho, Olare Motorogi and Mara North border the Maasai Mara with a fraction of its vehicles; Lewa and the Laikipia conservancies add rhino and wild frontier country further north.

Explore Kenya → Eastern Africa

Tanzania

Similarly, private concessions like Grumeti flank the Serengeti. In fact, this is migration country that only a handful of camps share, with walking and off-road driving.

Explore Tanzania → Southern Africa

Botswana

The entire Okavango Delta is likewise carved into vast private concessions: the conservancy idea at its grandest scale, explored by 4x4, boat and mokoro.

Explore Botswana → Southern Africa

South Africa

The Sabi Sand and its neighbors share an unfenced border with Kruger. In addition, decades of careful private guiding produce what many consider the best leopard viewing on earth.

Explore South Africa →

Where you’ll stay in the conservancies

Where you stay is selected privately around your journey. We recommend each camp, lodge or villa according to its location, season, guiding, privacy and suitability for the people traveling. You’ll then see the places we suggest, and why, in your itinerary.

Plan your private safari

Conservancy practical details,
in one place

Money, health, connectivity and packing work the same way on every safari we plan, so they live in one place rather than on every page.

Best time to visit a private conservancy

Jun–Oct

Dry season across most conservancy country, with peak viewing and walking weather.

Nov–Mar

Green season: newborn wildlife, dramatic light and better rates on private land.

Quieter seasons, considered

Also, in the green months rates ease at many of these camps, the plains empty of vehicles and the light turns dramatic. What each season gives, and what it trades, is set out in our Safari Planning Guide.

Planning & cost for private conservancies

Safari cost

Priced to your budget, and built around your camps, the season and how you like to travel. There are no fixed packages.

How we travel

Every journey is privately designed, with private guides and vehicles arranged where specified, the finest lodges, and a specialist on call throughout. At fly-in camps, game drives may be shared unless a private vehicle is reserved.

Private Conservancies FAQs

Land owned or leased from local communities and managed for wildlife, funded by a small number of camps paying per-bed lease fees. In addition, conservancies cap vehicle numbers, and activities most national parks restrict (off-road driving, night drives, walking) usually go ahead under the conservancy’s own rules.

Yes, usually better in practice. Wildlife moves freely between park and conservancy, but with so few vehicles you spend your time watching animals rather than queueing for a sighting.

Your rate carries the lease fees that keep the land wild and also pays for low guest density. In the end, it is the difference between visiting wilderness and helping own the responsibility for it, and the experience reflects it.

Kenya for the classic Maasai-owned model beside the Mara; Botswana for vast, watery private concessions; South Africa for polished lodges and leopards; Tanzania for migration country without the traffic. Many journeys combine two.

Getting to Kenya’s conservancies: flights, visas and health

Correct when we wrote it. Before you travel, we check every requirement for your exact route and tell you what to apply for and when.

AirportsJomo Kenyatta International, Nairobi (NBO) is the gateway; light aircraft to the Maasai Mara and the northern conservancies leave from Wilson Airport, a 30–45 minute drive across the city. Moi International, Mombasa (MBA) serves the coast.
Getting thereKenya Airways flies nonstop from New York JFK (about 14 hours). From other US cities, connect through JFK, Amsterdam, Doha, Istanbul or Addis Ababa.
Visa: US citizensUS citizens need an electronic travel authorization (eTA, about $30) before departure. That means everyone traveling, including infants and overnight transit passengers. Apply only at the official portal: etakenya.go.ke.
HealthYellow fever certificate required if arriving from a country with risk of transmission. Malaria prophylaxis is advised for the Mara, Samburu and the coast. Country guidance: CDC Travelers’ Health.
PassportSix months’ validity beyond your return date, with at least two blank pages. Travel insurance including medical evacuation is required on every journey we plan.
Full flight guidePlan your safari

Plan your private conservancy safari.

In short, the private conservancies of Africa buy you a freedom the national parks cannot.

So tell us how you like to travel and start with a complimentary consultation.

Plan your safari

For examples of conservancy-led conservation, see Lewa Wildlife Conservancy and Ol Pejeta Conservancy.