5 Best Hotels in Lake Manyara National Park, Tanzania

In the morning when the Maasai head out of their bomas along the Losimingorti mountain range, you'll hear the gentle clanking of their cattle's bells from your accommodations at this very authentic camp. After a day's safari, your nights are spent around a fire with the sounds of the Esilalei community around you. Then you retire to your breezy, well-appointed tent in supreme comfort. A good base to explore Lake Manyara, Tarangire, and the Ngorongoro Crater, Isoitok has a special partnership with the local community and when you're here you feel like you're a part of the community making this more than just your conventional safari camp stay. 

Hike up one of the hills at the back of the camp, especially at sunset to watch the Maasai herd their cattle home over the steppe.

This intimate camp is set among indigenous bush high on the escarpment and will make you feel much closer to Africa than some of the bigger lodges. Spacious thatch-roof tents, each with its own verandah, are built on wooden platforms with great views overlooking Lake Manyara. Gaily decorated with animal-motif furnishings, woven straw mats, and carved bedside lamps, all tents have an en suite bathroom with flush toilet and ceramic hand basins. Larger family tents are also available. The camp is an ideal base for game drives in the park, mountain biking, hiking, and bird-watching and a highlight is their hike down to the waterfalls below the ridge, but you need to be quite fit for this. After an action-packed day sip your sundowner in the attractive open-sided bar with stunning views over the Rift Valley floor.

On the edge of an escarpment this lodge presents a cluster of clean, en suite, double-story rondavels with breathtaking views over the lake. Good for a short stopover, the decor is slightly dated and the showers tiny, but what it lacks in aesthetics it makes up for in a program of varied activities. You can take Swahili lessons, amble along a gentle nature walk, or jog around the demarcated track of the lodge. There's also hiking nearby where you can explore thickly forested hillsides. A special outing is a village walk to the nearby town of Mto wa Mbu, which is home to more than 100 different tribes and one of the richest linguistic mixes in Africa.

The forest-floor-level entrance is flanked by an array of upturned wooden canoes that guests pass before climbing up to the main areas built under ancient branches heavy with flowers. A complex of rustic wooden thatch bedrooms, decorated with looped ropes of palm fronds, rest high up in the boughs of giant mahogany trees. Each has its own lounge area and en suite bathroom where you can relax in a bubble bath as birds flit past the big window. Take time to sit on your wooden deck suspended above the forest floor where the odd elephant may browse beneath you. There's fine dining inside a boma by soft gas lamps, a large newly wooden decked pool area, and plenty of privacy in this rather enchanting camp in the midst of the park.

The main attraction of this secluded bush camp, apart from its reasonable price, is its location in an indigenous forest just 2 km (1.2 miles) from the town of Mto wa Mbu and only five minutes from the entrance of Lake Manyara National Park. En suite tents with hot-water showers are basic and comfortable, and meals are included in the price. There's a bar and restaurant, and the staff will arrange game drives and other activities for you. It's a no-frills, no-fuss kind of place, with clean, comfortable tents that blend into the surrounding forest, providing plenty of privacy.