Under canvas

Camping in Samburu, Buffalo Springs and Shaba

All three reserves have campsites, public ones and special ones, and all three are governed by county finance law rather than by a national parks service. That means the camping rate sits in the same schedule as the entry fee, the booking route runs through county offices rather than an online portal, and several of the details a camper actually needs have never been published at all. This page separates what the law says from what the guidebooks say, and lists the open questions with the people to put them to.

If you only want the answer

Camping in Samburu National Reserve costs $25 per non-resident adult per night under the Samburu County Finance Act 2023, and $30 per non-resident adult per night in Buffalo Springs or Shaba under the Isiolo County Finance Bill 2023. The daily entry fee is charged on top, $85 a day in Samburu and $70 in the two Isiolo reserves. There is one public campsite on the Ewaso Ng'iro inside Samburu National Reserve near Soroi Samburu Lodge, special campsites inside Samburu including sites named Naiburta and Koitogor, a public campsite at Ngaremara Gate in Buffalo Springs, and public campsites inside Shaba. Special sites are booked through county offices, in Samburu's case Maralal or Archer's Post, and the only booking figure in either law is a reservation charge of KES 12,000 a week per site in Samburu and KES 10,000 in Isiolo. No county publishes a phone number, an email address or a booking form for camping, so plan on confirming everything at the gate or through your camp or operator.

What the law charges for a night under canvas

Both counties price camping in the same schedule that prices entry, under a heading that lumps it together with special activities. Samburu County charges $25 per non-resident adult and $15 for a non-resident child or student, with KES 800 for a resident adult and KES 500 for a resident child or student. Isiolo County charges $30 per non-resident adult and $20 for a child or student, with KES 500 for a resident adult. Isiolo's table lists no child rate for residents or citizens at all.

Neither figure includes the daily entry fee, which is charged separately per person and per vehicle. That is what makes the cheapest legal night inside Samburu National Reserve $110 per person: $25 of camping plus $85 of entry. On the Isiolo side the same sum is $100: $30 plus $70.

One more line is worth knowing. The Samburu schedule prices camping outside the reserve at KES 1,600, which is the charge that applies to camping operations on county land beyond the reserve boundary. Isiolo's schedule has no equivalent.

Charge	Samburu County	Isiolo County
Camping, non-resident adult	$25 per night	$30 per night
Camping, non-resident child	$15 per night	$20 per night
Camping, non-resident student	$15 per night	$20 per night
Camping, resident adult	KES 800 per night	KES 500 per night
Camping, resident child or student	KES 500 per night	Not in the schedule
Reservation or cancellation charge	KES 12,000 per week per site	KES 10,000 per week
Camping outside the reserve	KES 1,600	Not in the schedule

Read those figures for what they are. Both schedules price camping per person per night and neither sets a rate for a named campsite, so there is no legal figure that distinguishes a public site from a special one. Samburu's schedule calls its extra line a reservation or cancellation charge and ties it to a week and a site; Isiolo's calls it a reservation charge and ties it to a week only. Neither law states which campsites it applies to, whether it is refundable, or whether a stay of two nights still pays for a full week.

The campsites, reserve by reserve

There is one public campsite inside Samburu National Reserve, on the bank of the Ewaso Ng'iro near the lodge that reopened as Soroi Samburu Lodge in July 2025 after decades as Samburu Game Lodge. Older lists still locate it by the old name. Alongside it the reserve has special campsites allocated by permit, with Naiburta and Koitogor the two that appear by name in guides to the reserve.

Buffalo Springs has a public campsite at Ngaremara Gate with minimal facilities and drop toilets, plus special campsites that have to be booked in advance. Shaba has public campsites with basic facilities and no confirmed count. Neither Isiolo site has a rate published anywhere beyond the county schedule figure of $30, and the schedule does not distinguish between public and special sites.

Outside the reserves there are two further options that skirt the entry fee entirely. West Gate Community Campsite sits inside Westgate Community Conservancy, west and north-west of Samburu National Reserve. Umoja Women's Camp, run by the Umoja Uaso Women's Group, is just outside Archer's Gate at the edge of Archer's Post, with simple bandas, tents and a campsite. Both are conservancy or community ground, so a reserve ticket is only needed on days you drive into a reserve.

Site	Where	Rate	What is known about it
Samburu public campsite	Ewaso Ng'iro bank inside Samburu NR, near Soroi Samburu Lodge	$25 in the county schedule; $30 quoted by guides	Open all year. Guides say it cannot be reserved ahead and is paid for at Archer's Gate in cash, which sits awkwardly against the claim that the gates take no cash
Special campsites, Samburu NR	Inside the reserve, allocated by permit; Naiburta and Koitogor are the named ones	Not published separately	Booked through Samburu County offices in Maralal or Archer's Post, with a written permit stating the allocated site and dates
Buffalo Springs public campsite	At Ngaremara Gate inside Buffalo Springs NR	$30 in the county schedule	Minimal facilities, drop toilets. No published rate of its own
Special campsites, Buffalo Springs	Inside Buffalo Springs NR	Not published separately	Must be booked in advance; the route for doing so is not published
Public campsites, Shaba NR	Inside Shaba NR	$30 in the county schedule; guides quote $30 and KES 250 for citizens	Basic facilities. Guides warn that card payment is not available everywhere, so carry cash or mobile money
West Gate Community Campsite	Westgate Community Conservancy, outside the reserves	About KES 1,500 to 2,000 per person per night	Conservancy ground, so no reserve entry fee unless you drive into a reserve. The figure comes from a guide rather than the conservancy
Umoja Women's Camp	Just outside Archer's Gate at Archer's Post	Guides quote $10 to $20 per person for the campsite	Community-run, with bandas and tents alongside the camping ground. Rates quoted for the bandas conflict badly between sources

Two camps near the bridge, Lion King Bush Camp and Samburu Riverside Camp, are placed in Samburu National Reserve by some sources and in Buffalo Springs by others. That is not a trivial disagreement when it decides which $85 or $70 ticket you buy. Ring the camp and ask which county collects at its gate.

How booking actually works, and where it stops

Special campsites in Samburu National Reserve are booked through the county's own offices, and that is the clearest part of the picture. The route described by guides to the reserve runs through Samburu County offices in Maralal or Archer's Post, with payment by cash, M-Pesa or an invoice to a tour operator, and a written permit issued that names the allocated site and the dates. Carry that permit. It is what the ranger at the site will ask for.

For the public campsite inside Samburu National Reserve the same guides say there is no advance reservation at all: you turn up, you pay at Archer's Gate, and you pitch. For Buffalo Springs and Shaba the only statement anyone publishes is that special sites must be booked in advance, with no office, address, email or phone number attached to that instruction.

There is no online booking system for any of this. eCitizen is the KWS platform and none of these three reserves is a KWS park, so an eCitizen ticket or a KWS annual card is not the route in. Samburu County runs its own collection platform called Supa Pay, and whether that platform handles camping bookings, or operates at the reserve gates at all, is not established.

1. Decide which reserve and which kind of site: public or special, Samburu County or Isiolo County. The county decides the rate, the office and the ticket.
2. For a special site in Samburu, contact the county offices in Maralal or Archer's Post and ask for a written permit naming the site and the dates. Your camp or operator can do this for you and often will.
3. Ask what the reservation charge of KES 12,000 a week per site, or KES 10,000 in Isiolo, applies to in your case, and whether it is charged on top of the nightly rate.
4. Ask what the nightly rate will actually be at the gate, and ask for it in writing. Both counties' laws require an official receipt for every payment and Isiolo's tells the payer to demand one.
5. Carry both cash and mobile money. Dollars and shillings in cash, plus a phone with M-Pesa, covers every version of the payment story currently in circulation.
6. Bring your permit or receipt on paper. Signal is unreliable and the gate will want to see something.

Gates open at 06:00 and close at 18:00. Outside those hours you move only with the warden's permission, which is granted for breakdowns and bad weather rather than for late arrivals. Plan to be inside well before dusk, especially if you are still looking for your allocated site.

What we could not establish, and who to ask

Several things a camper needs are simply not published, and the gap is worth setting out plainly so you know what to ask rather than what to assume. The list below is what stayed open after reading both counties' finance legislation directly.

What a night at the Samburu public campsite really costs. The Finance Act 2023 says $25 and the best-known guide to the reserve says $30. Ask the County Government of Samburu, Department of Tourism, Trade, Enterprise Development and Co-operatives, through samburu.go.ke, or ask at Archer's Gate and take the receipt.
What the special campsites in Samburu cost. No separate rate is published. Ask the county offices in Maralal or Archer's Post when you request the permit.
Whether the reservation charge of KES 12,000 a week per site applies to special sites, public sites or both, and whether a two-night stay pays a full week. Neither law says. Same offices.
What Buffalo Springs and Shaba charge in 2026. The only complete Isiolo table that could be opened is the Finance Bill 2023, because the county assembly's website returns Account Suspended and the archive kept only the error page. Ask the County Government of Isiolo through isiolo.go.ke, or the warden at Ngaremara Gate or Shaba Gate.
How to book a special campsite in Buffalo Springs or Shaba. No office, email or phone number is published for it. Ask at the gate, or ask your camp or operator to arrange it.
Which payment methods the gates accept. One guide says cash is refused everywhere, another says dollars, shillings, Visa, Mastercard and M-Pesa are all fine, and a third says an eCitizen ticket is compulsory. None cites a source and the last one cannot be right.
Capacity, water supply and facilities at each site beyond drop toilets at Ngaremara. Nothing is published for any site in any of the three reserves.
Whether Naiburta and Koitogor are still the current special sites in Samburu. Both names come from guides rather than from the county.
How long a ticket lasts. Neither county's schedule states a validity period for person entry, so a multi-night camping stay could be billed by the calendar day or by the 24-hour clock.

Camping discipline in an unfenced reserve

None of these campsites is fenced, and the reserves themselves are open country on both banks of the Ewaso Ng'iro. Elephants use the riverine strip constantly: Save the Elephants has individually identified more than 900 animals using the reserves along this river since 1997 from its research camp on the edge of Samburu National Reserve. Ewaso Lions monitors roughly 50 lions including cubs in the wider ecosystem, spotted hyena are present, and olive baboons and vervets work every camp they can reach.

The river itself is the sharper risk. The Ewaso Ng'iro holds Nile crocodiles in considerable numbers, and the campsites that people want most are the ones on its bank. Do not wash, swim, wade or fill containers at the water's edge, do not let children play near the bank, and do not walk the riverside at dawn or dusk when the light is poor and the traffic is heaviest. Draw water at camp taps where they exist and carry the rest in with you.

The rest is ordinary big-game camping practice and it is not optional here. Seal all food in your vehicle or a hard container overnight and never in the tent. Use a torch and look around before you step out at night. Do not walk beyond the campsite boundary after dark without a ranger, which is also the rule that governs guided walks in the conservancies. Keep a fire going as one more layer and put it out properly before you sleep. Zip the tent fully every time, even for a walk to the vehicle.

Night driving is not an option inside the reserves in any case, because the gates close at 18:00 and the reserves are closed to visitor movement after dark. Night drives, walking safaris and off-road driving all happen in the surrounding conservancies, which set their own rules and charge their own fees.

Provisioning: Isiolo and Archer's Post are your last stops

Buy everything in Isiolo or Archer's Post and assume there is no fuel inside any of the three reserves. Isiolo is the last town of real size on the A2, 34 km short of Archer's Post, and Archer's Post itself sits about 13 km from the main Samburu gate. From there the tarmac continues north towards Marsabit while the side roads to each gate turn to graded murram and sand.

Water deserves a plan of its own. September is the hottest and driest month on the 1991 to 2020 normals, with a mean daily maximum of 32.4 degrees and one millimetre of rain, so three to four litres of drinking water per person per day is the working figure. Carry it in from town in large refillable containers and treat anything you draw at a campsite tap.

Take a stove rather than relying on firewood, since nothing published says whether firewood is supplied at any site in any of the three reserves. And take a 4x4 with high clearance. The tracks inside the reserves are sandy riverbank and dry bushland, the county's own description of its internal road network is good to decent with washboard ridges on the main routes, and the sandy luggas run as rivers after a storm.

Something this page does not answer?

Campsite booking in these parks is rarely a website. If you cannot work out who to write to, ask us.

Ask us. We answer questions about the park itself, and we can usually tell you which camps work on one route and who to write to. If what you want is a trip someone else arranges, we will say so and hand you to an operator we know, and we earn a commission if that becomes a booking.

Nothing on this site sits behind the form. Every figure we have is already on the page.

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