Luxury Hotels Atlas / The Maison / Elewana Collection
Elewana Collection hotels
East African camps and beach retreats link baobab country, rhino conservancies and Zanzibar’s shore.
Elewana brings safari camps and coastal retreats together in Kenya and Tanzania, with each stay shaped by its landscape. Founded by Karim S. Wissanji in 2004, the Nairobi-based company takes its name from the Swahili idea of harmony, finding settings that range from the Mara’s fig trees and Lewa’s rhino country to Kendwa’s beach.
10 Elewana Collection hotels in 2 countries on the Luxury Hotels Atlas (1 not open yet), each placed on the six LHA Tiers.
- Founded and led by Karim Wissanji
- Worldwide: 10 hotels on file, in Kenya, Tanzania, and Zanzibar
- On the atlas: 7 High Luxury, 3 Core Luxury
History
Elewana’s camps developed around individual landscapes and their conservation histories. Tarangire’s lodge wraps a great baobab within a corridor managed with the Maasai community, while Lewa’s setting carries the story of rhino protection. On Zanzibar, Neil Rocher’s white-domed Kilindi gives the collection a coastal expression with private pools and personal hosts.
Timeline
- 1980 — Serengeti Sopa Lodge begins receiving guests in the central Serengeti. Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge opens on the crater rim the same era. Both later move toward the Explorer name.
- 1984 — Canvas goes up under fig and elephant-pepper trees in what is now the Mara North Conservancy. Elewana takes the camp in 2005.
- 1995 — Tarangire Treetops opens on the park border, twenty suites on stilts around a baobab. Lewa Wildlife Conservancy is formally designated the same year, on a former cattle ranch.
- 2004 — Karim S. Wissanji founds Elewana Collection in Nairobi.
- 2009 — Kilindi opens to outside guests on Kendwa, Zanzibar. It had been designed as a private retreat for Benny Andersson.
- 2013 — A bush fire destroys the original Loisaba Lodge.
- 2016 — Elewana Loisaba Tented Camp opens on 1 May on that site, inside the 57,000-acre Loisaba Conservancy.
- 2019 — Loisaba Lodo Springs joins the conservancy's Elewana camps, beside the tented camp and Loisaba Star Beds.
- 2024 — Serengeti Sopa Lodge reopens as Serengeti Explorer by Elewana, 74 rooms, the first Explorer house.
- 2025 — Elephant Pepper Camp finishes a renovation that adds a fire-cooking side to the ten tents.
The houses to know
- Elewana Elephant Pepper Camp, Masai Mara, Kenya — About ten tents under fig and elephant-pepper trees in the Mara North Conservancy.
- Elewana Serengeti Pioneer Camp, Serengeti, Tanzania — 1920s-style tents on the southern short-grass plains, among the Moru kopjes.
- Elewana Kilindi Zanzibar, Kendwa, Tanzania — Fifteen white-domed pavilions on fifty acres, built first as Benny Andersson's private retreat.
- Elewana Lewa Safari Camp, Laikipia, Kenya — About thirteen tents inside Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, on ground that once served rhino protection.
- Elewana Loisaba Tented Camp, Laikipia, Kenya — The camp that replaced a lodge lost to fire, opened 1 May 2016 under Mount Kenya.
- Elewana Tarangire Treetops, Tarangire National Park, Tanzania — Twenty stilt suites around a baobab thought to be a thousand years old.
- Elewana Serengeti Migration Camp, Serengeti National Park, Tanzania — Twenty tents raised beside the Grumeti, with hippos below the verandahs.
- Serengeti Explorer by Elewana, Serengeti National Park, Tanzania — A 74-room lodge on the central plains, rebuilt in 2024 from the Sopa lodge of 1980.
Newest openings
- Serengeti Explorer by Elewana, Serengeti National Park, Tanzania, reopened in 2024. The Serengeti Sopa Lodge had taken guests in the central Serengeti since 1980. The new house is the first under the Explorer name the hotel record ties to Minor Hotels. Seventy-four rooms and suites, 68 of them Savannah Rooms, look over the plains from private balconies.
Opening next
- Ngorongoro Explorer by Elewana, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania, is still marked coming soon. It will convert Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge, on the crater rim since 1980, into a contemporary lodge looking onto the caldera floor. The hotel record calls it the second Explorer house, announced with the Serengeti lodge. A room count has not been published.
- Elewana The Manor at Ngorongoro — Karatu, Tanzania — opening status unconfirmed — The Atlas’s source record describes a proposed hotel below the conservation area, but does not establish its opening date, room count, or design. Those details need confirmation.
Every Elewana Collection hotel on the atlas
Tanzania
- Elewana Kilindi Zanzibar — Kendwa · High Luxury
- Elewana Serengeti Migration Camp — Serengeti National Park · High Luxury
- Elewana Serengeti Pioneer Camp — Serengeti · High Luxury
- Elewana Tarangire Treetops — Tarangire National Park · High Luxury
- Elewana The Manor at Ngorongoro — Karatu · Core Luxury
- Ngorongoro Explorer by Elewana — Ngorongoro Conservation Area · Core Luxury · Opening soon
- Serengeti Explorer by Elewana — Serengeti National Park · Core Luxury
Kenya
- Elewana Elephant Pepper Camp — Masai Mara · High Luxury
- Elewana Lewa Safari Camp — Laikipia · High Luxury
- Elewana Loisaba Tented Camp — Laikipia · High Luxury
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