Burunge Tented Lodge

Its great advantage is holding on to a real safari feel without being inside Tarangire. The lodge sits in a protected wildlife area around Lake Burunge — no villages, no roads, just bush — and right on the corridor animals use between Manyara and Tarangire, so zebra, elephant and antelope pass by while you are simply at the lodge. The restaurant and public areas face the lake and the plains, and on a clear evening sitting there for sunset is itself part of the trip. Plenty of economy-tier hotels are merely convenient for tomorrow's game drive; Burunge is already part of the safari, and we rate that highly.

It also gets the fundamentals right for its price: a pool, generous grounds, a genuine tented-lodge atmosphere and comfortable public areas — so after a full day out you can swim or sit on the deck over the lake, rather than retreat to your room. It belongs to Tanganyika Wilderness Camps (TWC), who run several safari properties in Tanzania and have a settled way of doing things: the hardware is not luxurious, but staff, food and day-to-day operations are reliably good — service comes up again and again in recent guest reviews.