Sumptuous Safari-Lodge Spas

For today’s safari travellers, it’s become increasingly desirable to pair wild adventures—game drives, hikes, hot-air balloon rides, bush picnics—with luxuriant pampering. To meet their needs, many of Micato’s deluxe partner lodges have created lavish on-property spas, where guests can indulge in wellness and beauty treatments inspired by the African landscape. Here are just a few of our favourite safari spa sanctuaries.

Singita Boulders Lodge
Sabi Sand Game Reserve, South Africa

Part of an award-winning collection of properties set within Singita’s own private Sabi Sand Reserve, Boulders Lodge embraces an aesthetic that melds the organic with the sumptuous. Every aspect of the experience here—like its guest suites designed with native stone and fossilized tree stumps but also with private plunge pools and fireplaces—allows guests to appreciate both wild nature and supreme luxury. This ethos is epitomized at the lodge’s Bush Spa, where the menu of treatments includes body polishes and nourishing wraps customized with indigenous ingredients like Kalahari melon and mongongo nut; hand and foot rituals that incorporate deeply moisturizing African shea butter; and relaxing massage using locally sourced oils of marula and neroli. Of special note: A signature massage in which a whole monkey orange—a smooth, firm native fruit—is used like a hot stone to release tense muscles.

Four Seasons Safari Lodge Serengeti
Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

As grand and expansive as the sweeping open plains that surround it—which are traversed every year by wildebeest herds during the Great Migration—the elegant Four Seasons Safari Lodge Serengeti specializes in cocooning its guests in modern comforts. That means rooms and suites kitted out with air conditioning, flat-screen TVs, and high-speed internet; an array of dining and drinking venues, including a private wine cellar; and a truly decadent spa. Employing ingredients like native rooibos and buchu plants (for its anti-aging facials), baobab seeds and oil (for its rejuvenating body scrubs wraps), and desert jasper stones (for its detoxifying massages), the Four Seasons also offers guided stretching, yoga, meditative hikes, and fragrant milk baths for soaking away the aches from the day’s game drives.

One&Only Nyungwe House
Nyungwe Forest National Park, Rwanda

Set high in the misty, jungle-clad mountains of Nyungwe National Forest, this remote and spectacular lodge has a lush, verdant feel. The tropical sensibility is heightened by the property’s many palatial verandas—including private ones adjoining every guest room and suite—from which guests can spy monkeys and vibrant-coloured birds in the surrounding treetops. At the intimate onsite spa, treatments are infused with rainforest ingredients; offerings include a stimulating Rwandan coffee-and-mint body wrap, healing massages customized with oils of sweet almond, marula, African potato, chamomile, and black pepper seed. Some options—like a soothing foot scrub followed by a deep pressure-point massage—can be enjoyed in a gently swaying, daybed-sized “forest swing.”

Royal Malewane
Thornybush Game Reserve, South Africa

Famed for the ultra-impressive credentials of its game rangers and guides (all of whom hold advanced field-guide certifications, as well as many awards in photography), Royal Malewane’s standards of excellence extend to every facet of its guest offerings. Along with opulent lodgings (in both a newly redesigned main lodge and a just-debuted, modern sister property, The Farmstead), refined dining (including a kosher kitchen for observant guests), and an extensive wine and spirits collection, the property’s Waters of Malewane Bush Spa has been lauded by both guests and the media. Among the spa’s long list of treatments are facials, exfoliating scrubs, body wraps and massages using locally sourced ingredients like African ginger, wild potato, and Pinotage grapeseed. Guests seeking an especially deep—and regionally distinctive—massage can opt for a kneading with a knobkierie, a carved wooden club traditionally used by local tribes.

A Micato safari provides abundant opportunities for indulgence, as well as adventure. Contact one of our safari experts to start planning your once-in-a-lifetime journey.