Mara Plains Camp

The Hotel

Mara Plains Camp sits on the Olare Motorogi Conservancy — the 33,000-hectare private wildlife conservancy immediately north of the Maasai Mara National Reserve, one of the higher-end private conservancies that hold the Mara region's most-prestigious traversing rights (the Olare Motorogi Conservancy was established in 2006 through a structured Maasai-landowner partnership and now permits a maximum of one bed per 350 acres — the lowest-density safari traversing limit in Kenya). Mara Plains is the singular Maasai Mara hospitality project of Great Plains Conservation — the conservation-and-luxury-safari group founded by National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence Dereck and Beverly Joubert in 2006, with conservation-luxury-properties across Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Kenya. The 7-tent footprint is by some distance the smallest top-tier Maasai Mara luxury property.

The 7 keys are individually free-standing tents distributed across the camp's small footprint along the Olare Orok River. Categories are uniform — every tent is approximately 100 sqm with a raised wooden platform, the Joubert-curated conservation-luxury decorative register (hand-loomed Kenyan textile commissions, custom-made East-African-hardwood furniture, the Joubert-personal Africa-photographic art commissions across every tent), private outdoor copper-bath, and direct Olare Orok River sightline. The Joubert-Camp's main lodge runs the central library-and-cultural programming — the property holds an extensive curated reference library of Joubert-family photographic and conservation publications.

Operationally Mara Plains runs the smallest-footprint Maasai Mara luxury scale at the Joubert-conservation-luxury register. The all-inclusive standard rate covers all meals, all premium drinks, twice-daily game-drive programme, and the Joubert-Conservation-curated structured wildlife-photography programming (Beverly Joubert is a National Geographic photographer; the camp runs structured photographic workshops with Beverly when she is in residence at the property — typically 8-12 weeks per year). Game-drive operation runs the lowest-density traversing in Kenya — 350-acre-per-bed limit means the camp typically encounters at most one other vehicle on a sighting; ranger-and-Maasai-spotter pairing is the regional standard; the camp's permitted off-road traversing on the Olare Motorogi gives sightings a structurally-different quality than the Maasai Mara National Reserve's vehicle-density.

What gives Mara Plains the considered Maasai Mara position is the smallest-property private-conservancy register at the Joubert-conservation context. The 7-tent footprint and the 350-acre-per-bed traversing density give the property a level of safari-quietness that the larger Maasai Mara National Reserve properties can't replicate; the Joubert-personal-hospitality signature gives a level of conservation-luxury register that no other Mara property delivers; and the Olare Motorogi Conservancy's wildlife density (the conservancy holds the highest leopard-and-cheetah density per square kilometre of any Mara-area land) makes the camp the structural choice for serious wildlife photographers. For a Maasai Mara conservation-luxury anniversary or honeymoon, a wildlife-photographer's solo retreat that takes the Joubert workshops as the structural anchor, or a multi-night East African Great Plains-portfolio circuit, Mara Plains Camp is the most-considered choice.

Best Occasion Fit

Practical Information

Also Great in Maasai Mara