Singita Sasakwa Lodge

There are a total of 10 hillside cottages at Sasakwa, blending East African styles with European influences in keeping with the colonial manor house. 6 of the cottages have 1 bedroom; 2 cottages have 2 bedrooms; 1 has 3 bedrooms; and 1 has 4 bedrooms, meaning Sasakwa is a great choice for accommodating couples, small groups, large groups and families of all different sizes. Every bedroom has its own private en suite bathroom equipped with bathtubs and walk-in showers. All cottages have their own spacious but cosy lounge areas, storage rooms, ample verandas perfect for relaxing and nature watching, and a private plunge pool to cool off after a game drive.

Sasakwa’s romantic Hillside Suite takes luxury that little bit further. The top pick for couples and honeymooners, the suite has just one double en suite bedroom, an outside lounge area, a private plunge pool with beautiful views, and a private butler, safari guide and safari vehicle.

Guests can expect the quality of a Michelin star restaurant at Sabora with imaginative menus and faultless service. Breakfasts serve an array of continental and hot cooked dishes from a buffet, including classic favourites and traditional Tanzanian dishes. Lunches are a la carte with 3 or 4 options for each course and afternoon tea is served before afternoon game drives, offering a range of different teas, coffee and light snacks. A little more formal, dinners are 3-course meals complimented by the Lodge’s premium selection of wines.

Journey to the heart of one of Africa’s most pristine and remote plains of wilderness for unmatched experiences in connecting with nature and witnessing the magnificent wildlife up close. While staying at Singita, you’ll have excellent chances to see an array of animals – cheetah, lion, wildebeest, Maasai giraffe, bat-eared fox, elephant, buffalo, leopard and the rare Colobus monkey. Each exploration is tailor-made with your personal Field Guide just for you so you can see the things you want to and no two game drives will be the same. You’ll be blown away by the knowledge and passion of your guides for the wildlife and wilderness as they share what they know about all the animals, the role of different plants and insects, the seasons and more!

Walking the same ground as the animals of the Serengeti is an incredible way to take safari to a far more intimate level. Once you slow down your eyes will be opened to all these new things you hadn’t noticed before. Your expert guide will be there to explain things that you wouldn’t be able to appreciate on a game drive, like wildlife tracks, the role of smaller animals and smaller plants, and different features of the landscape.

In keeping with Singita’s close relationship with local communities, guests staying at Sasakwa are invited to visit one of the nearby villages on an unforgettable cultural tour. You’ll have the chance to meet and get to know some of the locals, see how they live their day-to-day lives and learn about their culture.

One of Singita’s biggest commitments is anti-poaching. You’ll be able to visit of the observation posts, where 2 scouts will be posted for a week at a time, and see how anti-poaching is managed and tackled. You’ll get to see how the scouts go about their duties and day-to-day activities while stationed at the post, and get a glimpse of the scale and importance of their incredible work.

As one of Africa’s most influential collectors of wine, Singita’s lodges offer personalised wine tastings in their own wine cellars, with selections of premium vintages. It’s a favourite of both connoisseurs and casual tasters. Guests can even order their favourite wines from the selection to enjoy at home!

Singita’s purpose of restoration doesn’t stop at the land and its wildlife. The unspoilt African wilderness makes for the perfect backdrop to ensure your physical and mental wellbeing are taken care of. There is a fully equipped fitness centre and a tennis court so you can get in a great workout during your stay. You can also arrange a tailor-made session with a massage therapist that’ll leave you feeling tranquil and revitalised.

It’s never too soon to learn about the wonders of the African wilderness. For those travelling with their kids, the Mini Game Rangers is specially crafted, exciting course that will teach your young explorers all kinds of bush skills. Under the supervision of expert guides, they can learn how to track animals, survive in the wild, how to identify different birds and trees, and enjoy stargazing, arts and crafts, activity booklets and movies.

To Singita, a sustainable world is one were “people enjoy happy, healthy lives within their fair share of the earth’s resources, leaving space for wildlife and wilderness”. It’s their aim to implement One Planet Living thinking across all their operations so it becomes an integral part of how they function. Key principles of One Planet Living include:

• Health and happiness – the encouraging of living active and meaningful lives to promote health and well-being
• Equity and local community – the creation of safe, equitable places to live and work that enable communal prosperity and international fair trade
• Land and nature – “Protecting and restoring land for the benefit of people and wildlife.”

Sustainable operations across of all of Singita’s properties is key to achieving these goals to “preserve and protect large areas of African wilderness for future generations”. They are always looking for ways to be more sustainable, in terms of both the environment and community.

As guardian of over 350,000 acres across the Serengeti ecosystem, Singita’s partnership with the Grumeti Fund is instrumental to the impacts on the area. The Grumeti Fund is a non-profit organisation that’s financially independent in its conservation and community projects, relying on funds from guests staying Singita’s lodges, NGOs and philanthropists seeking to help conservation in Africa. Many challenges face the Serengeti ecosystem.

Illegal hunting/poaching, wildfires and invasive alien vegetation have been just some of the issues facing the Fund. But, since 2003 they have worked to restore formerly barren and degraded regions to areas of thriving wilderness, replenish populations of wildlife including buffalo, wildebeest and elephant, and “carried out the largest single relocation and reintroduction of 9 critically endangered Eastern Black Rhino”.

Community programmes and development are an essential part of Singita’s operations. They endeavour to nurture strong partnerships with neighbouring communities and help them to flourish financially and socially. Initiatives include a strong focus on education for various ages, learning opportunities for remote villages, empowerment for women and girls, support for small/medium businesses such as smallholder cooperatives that supply their lodges, small business development projects and extensive local employment. Singita also strives to preserve the culture of their communities, keeping it alive in the properties through things like design, décor and employment of local artisans. By doing this, culture can also become a part of every guest experience.

Another of Singita’s key commitments is preserving and restoring biodiversity across almost 1 million acres between 4 countries in Africa. Their core aim is to safeguard the “ecological integrity wildlife management and ecosystem restoration of some of Africa’s most diverse wilderness areas”. Conservation teams work to preserve the environment and ensure it is disturbed as little as possible by human activity. Especially in a world where continuous and often destructive changes to natural habitats are happening as a result of human interference, areas of protected wilderness are increasingly important for biodiversity conservation. Singita hopes to use their influence as a brand and connections to influential people to have a positive impact on these issues.

Although detrimental to wildlife and the ecosystem, poaching is something many households in local communities rely on for income and financial stability. So, while the Grumeti Fund’s operations seek to eliminate poaching they are also working on developing alternative sources of income for these households. Together with Raizcorp, a successful business development service, the Grumeti Fund has established an enterprise programme that provides personal support and skills sessions.

The Environmental Educational Centre (EEC) was established by the Grumeti Fund in order to provide education for the young generations from local communities about the importance of conservation work and environmental issues, so that they can go on to become environmental ambassadors in their communities. Singita believes in ensuring that the vital importance of the reserve is understood and bridging the gap between the reserve itself and the people who live around it. The EEC runs week-long courses for students who go to nearby secondary schools. The courses cover critical issues such as “deforestation, soil erosion, waste management and water conservation”. Then, once completed, these students can go back to their local schools and communities as advocates for tackling these issues. To date, as many as 2,000 students and teachers have studied with the EEC.

The younger generations in the communities around the Grumeti Reserve are brimming with potential to make a real and lasting difference. Unfortunately their potential is often overlooked or unrealised, and this is usually because their families cannot fund their education to the necessary levels. The Grumeti therefore awards scholarships every year to promising students so they can be equipped with the skills and experience they’ll need to pursue careers where they can make a difference. Students who are given scholarships are paired with a mentor from the Grumeti Fund, who can support them through their studies and offer additional training on things such as leadership, health and careers.

The Serengeti Girls’ Run event was established to raise funds towards the empowerment of women and girls, especially for providing girls with opportunities to become conservation leaders. Following the event’s success in 2018 and 2019, guests and runners of all levels are invited to join the women’s run across the wilderness of Singita Grumeti’s reserve. Whether on foot or giving support from the shadow vehicle, guests will also have the chance to meet some of the local girls and women and learn more about the Fund’s work.

In 2002, the Grumeti Fund founded a project to return the eastern black rhino to the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem, specifically the western Serengeti, to contribute to the gene pool and overall population of the ecosystem’s rhino populations. In 2019, the “largest ever translocation of rhino into Tanzania was successfully completed” and these rhinos now make up 10% of all eastern black rhinos in Tanzania. Their potential for the overall population is hugely important and recently the first rhino calf in decades was born at Singita Grumeti.

Poaching is one of Singita’s greatest concerns. Around the Singita Grumeti areas most poaching is commercial for bush meat but ivory poaching is also a constant threat. The Grumeti Fund has been combining cutting edge technology with a network of committed individuals to tackle poaching. The Fund employs a team of 100 game scouts, who come from local communities bordering the concessions. Within this team is an elite Specials Ops group of 18 scouts. They’ve proven their exceptional skills and work ethic; they safeguard the critically endangered black rhinos and respond to active poaching threats. There is also a small intelligence unit within the law enforcement department that works with a network of informers in the surrounding villages to track poacher movements.

To further help prevent poaching, the Fund established a canine unit comprised of 4 dogs. They have been expertly trained by Working Dogs for Conservation to “sniff out ivory, rhino horn, pangolin scales, ammunition, bush meat and snares, as well as to track people from the scene of a crime”. And while nothing can replace these incredible anti-poaching teams, their efforts have been enhanced by innovative deployments of high-tech equipment. Drones are now being used for surveillance and can operated 24/7 across protected areas. Scouts have also been equipped with cutting-edge night vision technology that allow them to operate throughout the night. Combined this allows the anti-poaching units to operate more efficiently and cover more ground, drastically lowering the chances of poaching and ensuring the safety of wildlife.

Singita is constantly vigilant about the environmental impact of their resources and strives to use products that are healthy and eco-friendly throughout their operations. Materials and products are resourced locally from renewable or recycled sources, from “items used in daily operations to construction materials for new lodges”. This helps to significantly prevent lasting damage on the environment by allowing it to maintain itself. Sourcing locally not only reduces Singita’s carbon footprint but also helps to support local economies.

The use of fossil fuels contributes to the emissions of greenhouse gases that are having a catastrophic impact on the planet, so Singita is working to replace this with renewable energy sources and install equipment that is far more energy efficient. Much of Singita’s carbon footprint is made up of generator power and electricity use so its lodges have moved to replace this with clean solar technology. This has a beneficial impact on the environment because solar energy is the most efficient renewable energy source, reduces air pollution in replacing fossil fuels and it doesn’t require water to make energy. They have further implemented measures such as LED bulbs and eco-friendly AC units that require less energy to use. Singita records and monitors its CO2 emitting resources to track their progress and conducts periodic analyses of their carbon footprint.

Singita have implemented a number of measures to reduce waste on their camps and, ultimately, their goal is to send zero waste to landfills. Most of the recycling goes to nearby community-run businesses, which is also financially beneficial for these communities. Plastic water bottles have been entirely replaced with stainless steel or glass bottles and Singita has made further progress in eliminating other single-use plastics on their lodges. Food waste in composted on-site and then used in landscaping around the lodge or given to farmers in the local community.