Africa is the smart choice for winter sun adventures with relatively short lights, little or no jet lag and a range of elegant lodges, luxury camps and memorable wildlife experiences, inds Lisa Johnson
AXIOM, MIKE MYERS, GETTY IMAGES Clockwise from left: The sheer beauty of Mount Kenya at dawn; luxury accommodation at Segera camp; views from Elsa’s Kopje in Meru National Park; rooms at Tama Lodge, Senegal are warmly inviting; a beach sculpture at Tama Lodge; haute cuisine at Les Palétuviers Toubacouta, Senegal KENYA The sublime landscapes and spectacular wildlife still attract visitors in their thousands, but particularly during the annual Great Wildebeest Migration. Since the first mobile safaris and lodges in the early 20th century, luxury tourism has flourished to take in an embarrassment of lodges and camps, including Elsa’s Kopje in Meru National Park, the setting of Joy and George Adamson’s Born Free adventure. There would appear to be room for more, however; this month, Wilderness Collection, a new brand from a company known for its lodges and safaris in southern Africa, opens Segera on the Laikipia Plateau in Northern Kenya. Wilderness Collection is committed to “unashamed but sustainable luxury”. Segera has eight villas, plus an art gallery, a botanical garden and a spa with a Rasul chamber (a special tiled space for rejuvenating mud treatments). Game viewing of endangered species such uch as Grevy’s zebra and predators including wild dog has a strong community conservation focus. segera.com SENEGAL To most Europeans, Senegal means music – Baaba Maal, Youssou N’Dour, and the fast mbalax music of the he Dakar nightclubs. But it’s also home to expansive, unspoiled beaches and a growing tourism industry. This former French overseas territory ritory is most readily associated with all-inclusive inclusive packages to the beach resorts of f the Saly area, two-and-a-half hours south h of Dakar. Tama Lodge, owned by a French collector of African antiques, and offering nine rooms and lantern-lit dining on the he sand, is the most enchanting. Other properties offer access to the Siné-Saloum Delta, an area south h of Saly that is threaded through with mangroves. angroves. FLY TO nairobi three times weekly; dakar and banjul four times weekly. brusselsairlines.com In the village villag of Toubacouta, Les Palétuviers offers chic accommodation, a swimming pool, bar and spa, and is currently current being upgraded by Belgian ow owners Fred and Karolien Dekens. Guests can swim with dolphins, can canoe through the mangroves, watch pelicans and myriad other birds, aand bike through the Unesco- protecte protected Saloum Delta National Park – or decam decamp to one of the hotel’s beach cabins aand eat fresh fish cooked on an open fir fire while listening to a tam tam. At € €90 per person full board per night it is highly affordable, and instead of Dakar Daka – a four-hour drive away – there is the option of flying to Gambia’s capital BBanjul, then a 90-minute drive broken wwith a 40-minute ferry crossing. tamalodg tamalodge.com; paletuviers.com LUXURY AFRICA <strong>november</strong> <strong>2012</strong> 51