ALL-INCLUSIVE COLLECTION

Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania

The Highlands

Price per night from$3,023.28

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (USD3,023.28), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

The Highlands Photos

Style

Bonnie basecamp

Setting

Crater good

Explore

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With its geodesic domes and guided crater hikes, there’s an otherworldly feel to stellar safari camp The Highlands in Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Local community visits and year-round game viewing — with predators aplenty — are in its orbit, and you’ll be left just as starry-eyed by its all-inclusive set-up. Nods to Maasai shuka in plaid-popping suites, teamed with fire-toasted spaces and a barrel sauna, bring a soul-warming cosiness, that’s welcome after dreamy days out. 

Once you’ve booked your safari stays, the Asilia team will be in touch within 48 hours to help arrange travel between camps, which may include charter or private small-plane flights and/or overland transfers.

Smith Extra

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A souvenir glass animal, handmade in Tanzania or Kenya

Facilities

Photos The Highlands facilities

Need to know

Rooms

Eight domes.

Check–Out

10am. Check-in is at 2pm.

More details

Rates at The Highlands include all meals and drinks (except premium wines and champagne), limited laundry service, game drives, crater hikes (for over-12s) and return overland transfers to Manyara Airstrip.

Also

Unfortunately, this remote camp is not suitable if you have limited mobility.

At the hotel

Free WiFi in the main area and rooms. In rooms: radio, electric fan, torch, USB charging ports, free bottled water, laundry detergent and Healing Earth bath products.

Our favourite rooms

Each of The Highlands’ geodesic domes is crafted out of canvas and Perspex, with touches of plaid and hide throws bringing a quaintness to the contemporary suites. Stays are made all the more romantic in a Honeymoon Dome, with its fire-warmed seating area and forest-backdropped hot tub.

Spa

At the spa boma, you'll find post-safari soothing at the barrel sauna, which pairs well with the cold-water bucket shower, or in an African-wood massage in the domed treatment room.

Packing tips

You can leave your Moon Boots behind — the craters you’ll be hiking are volcanic (though, they are out of this world).

Also

Once you’ve booked your safari stays, the Asilia team will be in touch within 48 hours to help arrange travel between camps, which may include charter or private small-plane flights and/or overland transfers.

Children

Over-fives are welcome. With under-12s in tow, you’ll need to book a private vehicle for game drives at additional cost. For some activities, the minimum age is 12 years old; younger Smiths will need to stay at camp, supervised by one of their adults.

Sustainability efforts

Asilia is a B Corp business and sustainability sits at the core of their safari offering, with camps designed to have minimal impact, and every operational choice rooted in reducing harm. This starts with the camp build itself, using locally sourced, natural materials.  Across all safari operations they minimise waste, prioritise renewable energy and respect the wilderness. The primary power source in their camps is solar, waste is weighed, segregated and recycled, emissions are tracked, and Scope 1 carbon is offset via REDD+ projects. The Highlands is intentionally set away from Ngorongoro Crater’s other camps to bring employment to more remote, local communities that don’t get the same tourism opportunities. Asilia invests in initiatives that enhance sustainability and your experience at their camps, such as farm-to-fork projects that ensure the freshest produce and reduce the need for supply runs across the fragile landscapes where they operate. As part of the Nawiri Group, Asilia contributes over $10m annually to nature protection and impact funding, providing long-term stable funding to partners across Africa. Their impact approach is community-led and includes a focus on expanding access to quality education in rural areas, funding programmes that benefit over 20,000 primary school students and over 200 vocational scholarships annually.

Food and Drink

Photos The Highlands food and drink

Top Table

You’ll dine all together, but if you’d prefer a private table for two, this can be arranged on request.

Dress Code

Come as you are in this remote, outdoorsy stay.

Hotel restaurant

Expect farm-to-fork dining that showcases seasonality and is proudly low on food miles. A commitment to sustainability and a celebration of local, indigenous ingredients underpin Asilia Africa’s approach to cuisine across all camps. Breads, cakes and even ice-creams are made freshly in-house, and dishes are always paired with South African wines. 

At The Highlands, breakfast might be a picnic in the bush consisting of fresh fruits, yoghurt, muesli, freshly squeezed juices, baked pastries, breakfast sandwiches and wraps. But if you're staying in camp, you also have an option to start your day with hot dishes à la carte. 

Across all Asilia Africa camps, the menu changes by the day; at each meal, there’ll be a choice of starters, mains, sides and desserts, with vegetarians as well served as meat eaters. Lunch on Wednesdays and dinner on Sundays are a distinctly Swahili affair, spotlighting local culinary traditions. If you have food preferences or dietary requirements, the camp’s kitchen team will be happy to adapt dishes to suit. 

Hotel bar

Gather in the main lounge area — a convivial and inviting space with its bush views, wood-burning stove and serpentine seating area — where staff are on hand around the clock to pour drinks, should you wish. 

Last orders

Rather than working to scheduled hours, meals fit around your plans and staff are happy to flex to meet your wishes.

Room service

Available 24 hours: you can order drinks and snacks to your suite; meals, too, can be arranged chez vous.

Location

Photos The Highlands location
Address
The Highlands
Ngorongoro Crater
Ngorongoro Crater
Tanzania, United Republic of

From its remote perch on the lush slopes of Olmoti Volcano, The Highlands is a drive from Ngorongoro Conservation Area’s lake and craters in northern Tanzania.

Planes

From Kilimanjaro, Arusha or Dar Es Salaam airports, connecting flights touch down at Lake Manyara airstrip, where you’ll be met by Asilia staff for the three-hour drive to the camp, included with your stay (private vehicles can be arranged for an additional charge). Bush flights can also be organised.

Automobiles

All the driving at The Highlands is taken care of by trained staff using Asilia vehicles.

Worth getting out of bed for

The Highlands' remote perch in Ngorongoro Conservation Area is set away from the region’s other camps, but within easy reach of its scenic landscapes. Here, you’re uniquely placed for half-day trips to Empakaai Crater, where a flamingo-studded lake and elephant-roamed rim are encircled by dramatic caldera cliffs. A shorter option — or addition — is the Olmoti Crater climb, an ancient cattle trail along which you might spy buffalo, zebra and leopard. Full-day excursions to the notable Ngorongoro Crater are marked by closed-vehicle game drives through verdant landscapes to spot the Big Five. Equally soul-stirring are visits to local communities, where you’ll be invited into a Maasai boma to learn more about traditional cattle-herding practices.

Put your three-night stay at The Highlands at the heart of a pan-Tanzanian trip taking in a trio of Asilia Africa camps. Start with the up-close and intimate nature of safari in Tarangire National Park at Oliver’s Camp for three nights, before heading to Ngorongoro and The Highlands. Three nights to finish at northern Serengeti’s Namiri Plains is the perfect foil with which to round off your East African adventures. 

Local restaurants

You’ll feast on spectacular scenery and enjoy your fill of safari adventures, but other than this, you can expect all your dining to take place either in camp or arranged by your hosts out in the bush. 

Reviews

Photos The Highlands reviews

Anonymous review

By Mr & Mrs Smith

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this sustainable safari camp in Ngorongoro Conservation Area and unpacked their memories for a lifetime, a full account of their at-one-with-nature break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside The Highlands in Tanzania… 

Asilia Africa’s pursuit for off-the-beaten-track locations is done with two intentions: finding you serene surroundings and giving back to remote communities. 

These motivations come into play at The Highlands, a cluster of geodesic suites set on the verdant slopes of Olmoti Volcano, an hour away from bucket list Ngorongoro Crater (and its neighbouring camps). Here, you can meet local Maasai communities that Asilia supports in cultural excursions, where you’ll be invited into a traditional boma to learn about their culture and heritage. 

Asilia’s good conscience doesn’t mean the camp forgoes luxury: you’ll find super-king-size beds, double rainfall showers and wood-burning stoves in your domed suite, and a wood-barrel sauna and treatment room in the spa area. Its all-inclusive nature sees locally sourced dining, breathtaking (in both senses) hikes and game drives as your daily staples. 

At The Highlands, authenticity isn’t cliché or a tick box — it’s genuine, like the Swahili word that Asilia is named after. 

Book now

Price per night from $2,640.00