The three Basecamp Mara Houses are situated close to a bustling waterhole and each features a large private verandah. The local Maasai community are our partners in delivering your Masai Mara adventure holiday against a backdrop of one of the world’s most thrilling wilderness areas.

Both conservancies are important community-owned wildlife areas in the Masai Mara ecosystem and their success has helped changing the story of tourism and conservation in the Masai Mara, improving the livelihoods of people and extending the size of protected land where fauna and flora thrive.

Tourism directly supports conservation through daily fees. This means that by visiting Saruni Basecamp, our guests are directly giving back to the community who protects this beautiful land, improving their quality of life, whilst at the same time encouraging the purpose for conservation.

The property has formed a local women’s group, where the ladies are encouraged to sell their artefacts through the shop.
Saruni Basecamp sponsors young Maasai to train as guides at the Koiyaki Guiding School and lead future generations of conservationists and safari guides. In fact, in this property, the training of Maasai guides and managers – a novelty in Kenya at the time – was pioneered more than two decades ago.

For Basecamp Mara Houses sustainability starts at home: more than 80% of the staff come the community of landowners. They proudly wear the traditional Maasai attire and they share their culture and heritage with our guests. To provide jobs, income, training and guidance for the local Maasai people is one of our main missions. We encourage the training of senior female staff, too.

Our guests are encouraged to participate in our reforestation work. The way it works is simple: we throw the seedballs into degraded areas during our game drive. A seed, encased in a fertile charcoal crust, will germinate and soon these areas will be covered once again with indigenous trees and shrubs. We have partnered with a company called Seedballs Kenya to help re- green our parts of the country.