Serena Safari Lodge, Ngorongoro

Rates: from $395 per person per night, based on 2 sharing.

Perched on the jagged rim of the crater weathered in morning mist, camouflaged in river-stone and cloaked in indigenous creepers, the Ngorongoro Serena Safari Lodge is a triumph of ecological and architectural fusion. Sensitively constructed so as to take nothing from its environment, whilst affording endless vistas over the heat-shimmering reaches of the crater below, the clustered boulder-built buildings and of the Lodge hug the crater rim, linked by rope-lashed timber walkways that skirt the buttresses roots of ancient, liana-hung trees.