Review: Masiya’s Camp, South Africa

Masiya’s Camp is the fourth, yes, fourth, Royal Portfolio safari lodge, which all confusingly fall under the Royal Malewane brand, and are all a short drive from each other.  And you’d think by the fourth time of asking, it would be pretty damn good.  And you would be right.  Quote me on this: Royal Malewane is the best safari lodge in Southern Africa.  But, it happens to be in one of the worst areas.

Getting there

Easy enough.  I chartered a PC-12 from Johannesburg, which took 50 minutes, flying directly into Royal Malewane’s private airstrip.  The airstrip had a new lounge opening that very day, which looked all very grand and fancy.  It’s just a five-minute drive from there to the camp.  Alternatively, you can fly into Hoedspruit on a scheduled flight and take a one-hour car journey, if you hate efficiency.

Setting

Masiya’s sits in the Thornybush Private Game Reserve, which adjoins the Kruger National Park with an open boundary — meaning animals move freely between the two.  On paper, that sounds like a dream.  In practice, Thornybush is one of the busiest reserves in South Africa, with a density of activity that makes Lily Phillips blush.

Thornybush covers about 60,000 hectares (~148,000 acres), so far, so good, but there’s a lot of lodges to compete with.  And then you look up and see electricity pylons, distant lodge lights, the not-so-distant glow of human civilisation.  It certainly doesn’t have the feel of the remote Serengeti that you may have in your mind.

But there are pros and cons to this.  Firstly, having other vehicles buzzing around means more eyes, more trackers, more intel.  So if you want to know you’ll see lions every 48 minutes, this is perfect; if you want to feel like you have the continent to yourself, not so much.

But — and this is the bit I need reminding of — most guests are on their very first safari.  Most are only going the once.  If you came here as your introduction to Africa, you would have the time of your life.  You wouldn’t know the difference.  You wouldn’t know what you could have.  You would simply think this is how all safaris are.  I envy you.  You sweet, innocent, blissfully unaware, lucky bastard/bitch, you.  How I wish to be you.

The lodge itself is set along the same river line as Royal Malewane – in fact, it and Africa House, are minutes away.  Vervet monkeys committing light crime, nyala strolling around like they own the place, an occasional hyena wondering if you’re edible.  All charming.

Facilities

Masiya’s Lodge is absolutely stunning.  Everything about the place is Liz Biden on steroids or cocaine, or whatever her preference for narcotics is.  The design has all her hallmarks, yet it is different enough from the other properties.

They call themselves a tented lodge.  Yes, there’s pink tents on safari…sure, why not.  Live the dream.  Some may think they’ve ended up in Dumbo’s tent.  But me, I adore this place.  And not only does it look stunning, it’s practical.  It’s spacious.  It makes you exhale on arrival as it somehow relaxes you.  It has some canvas here and there, but that’s mostly decorative – it’s as high-end as you could possibly go.

Everyone out there is all “oh, we’re so unique, look at us with our colonial design and dark wood” and my god it’s a bore to photograph it, write about it, or even stay there.  This is like if the Mad Hatter took an interior design course, and a load of valium.  There’s nothing boring about it.  Ignore all the wildlife, just being here is a pleasure.

The entrance sets the tone immediately: a long water feature, steps descending into an open atrium with the bar as the focal point.  A boutique is immediately to the right.  The “wine cellar” wraps around the lounge area.  Everything is technically in one building, but it flows so seamlessly between indoors and outdoors that it feels like several different environments stitched together.  Cosy fireplaces in the evening, breezy, open, airy during the day.

Outside, the pool.  Beautiful, yes, but very much on display.  Unlike Waterside Lodge, where the pool is tucked away from prying eyes, here you would feel like you’re performing for an audience.  Here you are the entertainment.  If someone is sitting at the bar and you get in the pool, you will feel like a yob.  But that’s the only space not well conceived.  Besides the pool there is yet more lounging areas, but sadly not looking at a whole lot.  Nearby, there is a private gazebo setup tucked away, and a boma.

The main dining room has this upscale-diner feel to it with ridiculously comfortable chairs and an open kitchen where you can see people actually doing things rather than pretending to.  Or, of course, just eat outside.  There are so many dining spots here I could lose my family and never find them again.  Bliss.

I’m a firm believer in overkill.  Not excess — we’re not doing Dubai-on-safari.  I mean the ridiculousness of carving out an entire airport terminal’s worth of space for twelve guests.  Perfect.  Yes, Masiya’s Camp has a maximum occupancy of 12 guests.  Yet there’s 8 bar stools alone.  And approximately 47 different seating areas.  If this were a horror movie and everyone had to split up to “guard an entrance”, everyone would be dead in five minutes because there are simply too many entrances.  It’s too large.  It’s absurd.  It’s brilliant.

Spa and Gym

The spa and gym are still being built. For now, treatments are done at the main Royal Malewane lodge, a five-minute drive away. My massage there was the sort where, if someone burst in halfway through and announced we all needed to evacuate because a rabid, blood-thirsty impala had breached the perimeter, I’d be out the door before they finished the sentence. No need to reschedule.  A very polite 5/10. Entirely forgettable.

Rooms

Calling this “tented” accommodation is pure comedy.  It makes Singita Sabora look like post-meltdown Chernobyl.

There are only six rooms.  I was in Room #4, closest to the main lodge.  Four rooms sit on one side, two on the other.  Each is individually designed by Liz Biden but follows the same layout.  I knew exactly what the room would be like before I arrived and yet it still managed to surprise me.  It’s just so elegant.

I love that it’s actually thought through on how people use rooms.  And some of the details are so basic, yet so many lodges get them wrong – like having the heated towel rack besides the shower, not across the room, like it’s shy.  The motion sensor light in the toilet, so you’re not fumbling around in the night when your tiny bladder gives in.  The air-conditioning is the real kind, built in, rather than units blighting your eyes with their presence.  And it works a damn treat too.   These are basic concepts executed perfectly, which is rare in the safari world.

Everything is glass-fronted, everything flows.  Not much I’d say in the way of view, but alas, nowhere’s perfect.

Inside, it’s open-plan, but you can pull a curtain to divide the bathroom and bedroom.  The bathroom setup is ideal: twin vanities, a bath that deserves a photoshoot, a shower with actual pressure and water temperature that commits to being hot.  Toilet gets its own enclosed room because we are not animals.

Outside, the deck is massive.  Pool, loungers, a cabana with a swinging sofa (my happy place), shaded seating, another little seating arrangement under an umbrella — and fans positioned exactly where they should be.  Someone clearly tried living in one of these before declaring it finished.  The pool is more than a plunge, but not big enough for laps.  However, mine was heated to 31°C, cos someone finally understands a pool is useless if it feels like diving into the North Sea.

Uniquely, there’s also a TV in the rooms, this one at the end of the bed that raises from a cabinet.  But everywhere else they’ve thought of everything, from the wardrobe space, to the desk, to the minibar.  The moment I opened the minibar, flood of emotions came back as I remembered their local chocolate rose bar that is pure sex

Now, the negatives.

It can get windy at night, with the kind of roof creaking that makes you think a herd of elephants is staging a coup.  The light switches were designed by either a sadist or a leprechaun with military-grade night vision goggles.  They are low, tiny, and labelled in font size 6.  Expect to crouch repeatedly like you’re pledging allegiance to a lamp.  The AC works beautifully but cycles on and off at night, with occasional clicking noises that may or may not be a possessed demon telling me the story of how it was murdered and how I have to solve it to release it to the next life.  And there is no master switch, so you will perform the nightly task of walking around the room, turning off lamps like a butler in training.

Basically, nothing they can’t fix.

Service

They had my entire Stay List from previous Royal Portfolio visits executed perfectly.  No reminders, no follow-ups, no “we’ll see what we can do.” Just done.  The manager even casually referenced my hatred of onions in conversation — a woman after my own heart.  Every preference was dialled in from the start.

Everyone was warm and super friendly.  Little touches appeared throughout and there was that service level where you don’t need to ask, you simply get.

There were a couple of small wobbles, like when I was given a departure note for the wrong lodge.  And if I’m being super picky, the turndown chocolate was dark, which tells me the pastry and housekeeping teams aren’t on speaking terms.  This is the kinda petty stuff you notice when everything else is operating at a very high level.

Food

The food is superb.  Of course it’s superb.  Have you not been paying attention so far?  They took care of every single preference, including bringing things over before I could ask.  Lunch offered up about five choices, all of which are slightly bigger than starter portions – you can pick a few or all of them in the name of science and investigative journalism, depending on your hunger.  They did special dinner events, and all of it was fantastic.  Breakfast was a small buffet before the game drive, then a near-buffet level of food brought to table for breakfast post-game drive, plus an a la carte menu.  And the pastries.  Oh, the pastries.  And can you guess what?  It was all excellent.

Activities

My guide, Brad, was excellent — actually knowledgeable about the industry, conservation politics, the reserve, and yes, the animals.  Genuinely good company.  We laughed a lot.  Probably about stuff we shouldn’t laugh about.

Sightings were immediate: wild dogs vs hyenas, lions, leopards, buffalo, rhino and elephants.  The Big Five all in one game drive.  This is the Thornybush benefit.

Otherwise, I also visited the K9 unit, which is always interesting. But sadly, no darting opportunities this time. A shame — nothing says holiday quite like sedating wildlife.  (And, just to get ahead of Greenpeace: you aren’t paying to knock out animals for sport. You’re covering the cost of an ongoing conservation procedure — DNA sampling, collaring, relocation, etc. If something happens to be scheduled while you’re there, you’re invited to observe. You don’t cause the darting by paying. You just pay because you were allowed to watch. Calm down.)

All the same, I managed to get up and close with wildlife.  I returned to my room one afternoon to find a hyena asleep on my doorstep.  It saw me and ran.  Interpret that however you’d like.  Personally, I choose “apex predator beast energy.”

You see the pros of a busy reserve mixed in with the cons.  With all these other guides out, you will find the good sightings.  The next day we found the dogs again.  And yet again we were kicked off the sighting, only to come back later.  But we would have lost the dogs without other vehicles calling them in and following them.  The dogs killed something near another lodge.  We couldn’t see it, but we could hear the chaos — the dogs, the hyenas, the whole thing kicking off.  But because we were rotated out of the sighting and then brought back later, the adrenaline was gone.  The pacing had gone.  The excitement had evaporated.

Watching a hunt unfold — even if you don’t see the final moment, even if the animal gets away — is one of the most thrilling things on safari. The adrenaline comes from the build-up. But not here, not when you’re basically a spectator of the spectators. Here, we were just watching other vehicles watch it.  

And so, there be the cons. The queues. The restricted areas. The sometimes getting kicked off a sighting just as it gets interesting.  The constant reminder that you are sharing this reserve with quite a few other people.  I get it.  Well, some of it.  No one wants three vehicles parked outside their room while they’re showering — unless you subscribe to my OnlyFans, in which case, welcome.

You will see the Big Five.  You will see action.  It is exciting.

But those who have been to the quieter, more controlled concessions elsewhere know that there is better.  For a first safari: this is a brilliant place to go.  For someone who has already done Botswana, Grumeti, the private Mara conservancies, etc.: you’ll notice the ceiling.

Kids Friendly

Children over 10 welcome, so I guess it’s not that kid-friendly?  Use that to your advantage, if you want.  The only person whinging and acting like a child might be me.

The Good

• Wildlife
• Setting

The Bad

• The reserve is busy.
• My hyena friend did not return for a farewell.  Heartbreaking.

The Luxurious

• Accommodation
• Facilities
• Food
• Service
• Design

Conclusion

Masiya’s Camp is, without question, the best tented camp in the world.  The only reason I can assume they called this “tented accommodation” is to take the piss and mock the competition. It’s like living in the Taj Mahal but telling everyone it’s “just a little place I’m doing up at the weekend.”

But how I desperately wish Royal Portfolio would venture into other areas. They were once sniffing around Mozambique, which was the closest I’ve felt to hope in a long time. Imagine this level of product in Botswana. Or in a private concession of Gorongosa. Or in the Serengeti. It would be unfair. It would be devastating. It would be probably end all my reviews.  “Just go there”, I’d say to everyone.

This review felt, even before I arrived, like it might just end up being a copy-and-paste of everything I’ve said about their other properties. Cos I still stand by this: Royal Malewane is a better lodge experience than every Singita in Southern Africa. In fact, as a lodge it’s better than all the competition, including Londolozi and Tswalu.  And all the other luxury lodges in this part of the world you’re currently preparing to shout at me.

You could even say it’s a better experience if you get lucky and can do some of the conservation options.  But it’s not in a better area due to other lodges.

I love this place.  It’s so bright it almost has this beach vibe to it.  I love the design, the intimacy and the facilities.  I love the food, the service, the sightings.  I love the extremely high quality guides they have (my last two were brilliant as well).  I still love the location of Waterside more, but Masiya’s Camp is an absolutely wonderful property.  I knew I would love this place before I came here, as Royal Malewane have been on a roll ever since they opened Farmstead back in 2019.  But, I also knew what the negatives would be too.  Although I didn’t account for one of them being the sheer disappointment I would feel every time I opened my door and my hyaena wasn’t there.  Rude.

Royal Malewane is shutting down next year for a major refurb — its first in nearly 25 years — and is expected to reopen around Q3. In the meantime, if you’re set on staying in Thornybush, you’re hardly suffering for options.

This is one of the best lodge experiences in Southern Africa.  It just isn’t one of the best safari experiences.