Located in the middle of the Tarangire wilderness, Oliver’s Camp has one of the most wonderful settings one could imagine and offers an unparalleled bush experience.
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Overview
When Paul Oliver first came to Tarangire in 1985, he found what he had been looking for in his years of traveling through Africa: a wild and unspoilt national park, with an incredible density of mammals, dominated by a huge population of his favorite animal: the African elephant. Paul guided and traveled for 7 more years, but in 1992 he started a small and intimate camp in Tarangire, aimed at offering his guests a deep and authentic African experience.
Having started just outside the national park, Oliver's Camp moved into the Tarangire National Park in 2001. Although walking safaris were previously not allowed, the national park authorities have since allowed camp guests to walk inside the park. These walking safaris, accompanied by your guide and a park ranger, are still the specialty of Oliver's Camp. In 2004, Paul handed over the camp to Asilia Lodges & Camps. The atmosphere of intimacy and a true bush experience prevail in this wonderful, small camp in the wilderness of Tarangire.
Oliver's Camp is situated in the remote south-eastern part of the park, in the middle of Tarangire's unspoilt wilderness. The camp is ideally placed to access the yearly migrations of wildlife, and to view impressive concentrations at waterholes and in the spectacular Silale swamps. This area offers the best chance of seeing lion, leopard and cheetah and, especially during the dry season, the swamps are filled with elephant, buffalo and zebra. The camp is the perfect base to explore the busier baobab-country in the north of the park, but at the end of the day, guests return to the absolute exclusivity of Oliver's Camp.
Tarangire National Park is located in northern Tanzania, 120 km southwest of Arusha. The park is named after the Tarangire River that runs through the center of the park from south to northwest and drains into lake Burungi. Tarangire is known for its large herds of elephant and majestic baobab trees. You can find many of the large African mammals here, including lion, leopard, buffalo, and lesser and greater kudu. The park hosts an enormous variety of birds - more than 500 species. Walking safaris and off-road driving are possible in the area around Oliver's Camp, thus ensuring you discover Tarangire in an intense and unforgettable way.
Although Tarangire is a much smaller national park than the immense Serengeti, the concentration and variety of wildlife are astounding. During the dry season, Tarangire has the highest concentration of mammals per square kilometer of any Tanzanian national park. The area around Oliver's Camp is not only excellent for viewing lion, leopard, elephant, giraffe, buffalo and even cheetah, but you can also see rarer mammal species such as lesser and greater kudu, fringe-eared oryx and caracal.
The rich variety of vegetation in Tarangire means a rich variety of habitat for birds. Species differ from flamingos to eagles, cranes to woodpeckers, hornbills to geese. The changing fortunes of land outside the park make this healthy habitat even more attractive. Resident bird species number in the hundreds and, during September to April, migrant birds bring the known number of species to over 500. Each year, new species are added to the already impressive list.
Every season's fluctuating weather patterns result in different conditions. This makes it particularly exciting for bird watchers as they explore this beautiful habitat. Visitors from overseas are delighted by seeing over 100 species on their first day alone. And over the course of a week it is common to see well over 200 species, especially between December and April.
FACTS AND FIGURES Tanzania is slightly larger than twice the size of California with a total of 945,087 sq kms. It has a population of 37.5 million (July 2006 estimate). The capital is Dodoma. However, the commercial capital, and by far the largest city, is Dar es Salaam on the Indian Ocean. Arusha, in the north, is the center for tourism.
OFFICIAL LANGUAGE Kiswahili (or Swahili) and English are Tanzania's official languages. Kiswahili is the national language and the language used in primary school education; English is often the primary language of commerce, administration and higher education, and is by no means spoken fluently by all Tanzanians.
Facilities
- solid wooden furniture - gorgeous warm showers that can be taken under the Tarangire sky - lounge and library - fireplace
Activities
The range of activities on offer at Oliver's Camp is unique for a camp inside a Tanzanian National Park. Off-road driving makes wildlife drives more intense and interesting and allows you to get closer to the action. Walking and fly camping add another unique element to a safari that is hard to find in other parts of Tanzania. The park's stunning natural beauty is ideal for wildlife and nature photography. Game drives from Oliver's Camp are usually carried out in open vehicles, giving a feeling of absolute freedom. Off-road driving, allowed only in the remote areas of the park, gets you closer to nature and wildlife - from spider to lion - and you'll discover rare and interesting species that usually go unnoticed when driving on dedicated roads. Walking is the absolute specialty of Oliver's Camp. The privilege of walking in these prime natural areas gives you exhilarating feeling of adventure. Although you'll usually get close to large mammals such as elephant, giraffe, buffalo or even lion, walking safaris are very safe: the experienced naturalist guides of Oliver's Camp avoid confrontations with animals (watching is not the same as disturbing!) and an armed national park ranger accompanies every walk.
Walking safaris can take an hour or a whole morning or afternoon, but combined with fly camping, they can take several days, letting you discover the most remote parts of Tarangire. The light weight fly camp is an extension of the main Oliver's Camp. The fly camp is typically booked as part of a walking safari or simply as a completely private night away from the main camp. The stunning beauty and richness of Tarangire's nature and wildlife and the wide range of activities at Oliver's Camp are best enjoyed by staying at least 2 nights. However, most guests prefer to stay for 3 up to 5 nights, combining a stay in the base camp with exploratory walking adventures.
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Rooms & Accommodation
Safari Tent (8)
Safari Tent (8)
Sleeps: 16 Price from: $460 to $555 USD
Tents are made of thick mosquito mesh, separating you from bugs, but allowing you to see skies filled with stars and passing animals at night. Fly camping is about adventure, not luxury: beds are comfortable and the crew cooks amazing meals in the middle of the wilderness, but tents are simple, with outside shower and bathroom facilities. For those who appreciate the true luxury of absolute proximity to nature and the private, intense and overwhelming experience that fly camping is, this is an experience that will stay with you for a lifetime.
Our Trusted Partner's Responsible and Sustainable Travel Policy
COMMUNITY AND CONSERVATION
The Honeyguide Foundation is a grassroots organization dedicated to community support and to the conservation of wildlife. This is being achieved through long-term community partnerships.
Established in 2006 by the Asilia Group, the Foundation is an independent entity that supports specific projects in the areas where the Group has a presence.
The Foundation is trying to cover a wide range of different projects. These projects include education, supporting small local, eco-friendly businesses and initiating land use plans. Other initiatives being undertaken are - Environmental initiatives that aim to conserve community resources, community health care and conservation awareness. Many communities, especially in the rural areas where we operate, are poor and lacking in education. They may not even be aware of their basic rights to land, water and honest leadership. With more than a decade's experience in Tanzania, we believe the most successful projects are those initiated from within a community - rather than those imposed from outside. A selected community must be able to articulate its issues, needs and vision to the Foundation, rather than simply being handed a solution. Each community is unique.
The challenge for the Foundation is to evaluate sensitively the status and progress of each community's capability as well as to monitor and help guide the individual projects. Honesty and commitment have to be evident on our part too. This means constant evaluation of our own progress - and sometimes admitting we've got it wrong. This means setting long-term goals - with enough immediate short-term results to encourage. By encouraging self-awareness and good leadership at a focused, grass-roots level, the Foundation envisions that our partner communities will pull themselves out of poverty. This will therefore achieve sustainability for the projects and at the same time, the communities will become stable, imaginative and progressive contributors to the preservation of the country's wildlife and wild places.
About our Trusted Partner
Asilia Lodges & Camps is a small group of owner-run properties that with small camps (typical 8 tents or less) and lodges in the most wonderful areas of Tanzania.
Although many countries in Africa may have a right of speech, Tanzania possibly has the biggest claim of all to capturing the true beauty of this mysterious continent in all its facets. The Serengeti National Park, with is Great Migration and highest concentrations of wildlife anywhere in the world, the Ngorongoro Crater, the biggest intact caldera in the world with over 75000 animals packed in the wonderful Ngorongoro landscape, Tarangire National Park, with its mystical baobabs, its walking safaris and more elephants than you'll ever see, snowcapped Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain of Africa and - last but not least - tropical Zanzibar, with its pristine beaches, excellent diving and snorkeling and historical Stone Town, world heritage site and centre of slave trade in past times. We stay away from the large concentrations of tourists (although Tanzania as a destination is already far quieter than the likes of South-Africa and Kenya) to offer you the most varied and beautiful parts of Tanzania in the most intimate and personal way.
All our places are famous for their gourmet food and have the most comfortable beds and the most spacious and tasteful rooms you'll find anywhere, yet all have their own distinct history, identity and design. However, our idea of true luxury and exclusivity is not in the material things - it's in bringing you closer to the overwhelming beauty of Africa than you will ever be.
Our small and intimate locations in and around the national parks are carefully positioned in the most exclusive of locations, often enabling you to - by car or on foot - discover nature and wildlife undisturbed by any other traveler. Matemwe's beaches, with the finest white sand you've ever seen, turquoise sea, tropical gardens and reef diving and snorkeling, its massages and its fresh seafood is the most perfect of places to wind down after your safari and contemplate on all the beauty you have come across.
Tanzania, delivered to you in a personal way, might just leave a life-changing footprint on your very soul, and we personally await you to make this happen.
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