Africa’s Most Beautiful Hotel Pools

The Tranquil Traveller

Sonop is ten canvas tents built into a pile of granite boulders in the southern Namib, and its infinity pool sits out on the rock with open desert running flat to the horizon in every direction. Swimming here feels like floating at the edge of a very large, very empty room, with the 1920s-explorer lodge behind you and nothing at all in front. The rate is all-inclusive, covering meals, drinks and daily guided outings by vehicle, on foot, on horseback or by camel. Reaching Sonop takes a five to six-hour drive from Windhoek or an 80-minute charter flight, and desert temperatures swing hard between day and night, so the pool is a midday pleasure more than an evening one.

Location

Namib Desert, Namibia

Tranquility Index

92 / 100

The Tranquil Traveller

Six Senses Zil Pasyon sits on Felicite, a granite private island near La Digue, and its main pool runs along the hillside above the Indian Ocean, framed by the huge weathered boulders that give the Seychelles inner islands their shape. Every villa also has its own infinity pool set into the rocks, most with nothing but sea beyond the edge. Getting here means a flight to Mahe or Praslin and then a helicopter or boat, and the island is steep enough that you rely on buggies between the villas, beaches and restaurants. The wetter, windier months from about December to February can bring seaweed onto the sand, but the granite, the jungle and the water are a year-round draw.

Location

Felicite Island, Seychelles

Tranquility Index

86 / 100

The Tranquil Traveller

The infinity pool at Four Seasons Safari Lodge Serengeti is built on a raised deck above a waterhole in the central Serengeti, and elephants, buffalo and antelope come down to drink through the day while guests watch from the water or a lounger. It is one of the few pools in Africa where the wildlife show comes to you between drives. This is a resort-scale lodge of 77 rooms inside the national park, not a small private camp, so the public areas can be busy in peak season and drives run on park roads shared with other vehicles. But for a first safari, or a family that wants a serious pool and a spa alongside the game, the setting is hard to beat.

Location

Serengeti, Tanzania

Tranquility Index

95 / 100

The Tranquil Traveller

Cheetah Plains is three standalone villas in the Sabi Sand, each taken on an exclusive-use basis with its own chef, guiding team and vehicle, and each with a private pool on a deck that looks straight out over a waterhole. Because you book the whole villa, the pool is used only by your own party, and game from elephant to leopard often drinks within view of the water. The trade-off is price and style: a villa is sold for all four suites at once, so it makes sense for a family or group rather than a couple, and the architecture is sharp glass and concrete rather than classic safari. Drives use near-silent electric 4x4s, which keeps both the bush and the lodge unusually quiet.

Location

Sabi Sand Game Reserve, South Africa

Tranquility Index

94 / 100

The Tranquil Traveller

&Beyond's Sossusvlei Desert Lodge sits in a private reserve of around 12,700 hectares on the edge of the Namib, and its pool is set into the stone terrace at the centre of the lodge, an infinity edge that falls away toward bare desert and distant mountains with nothing built in between. Each of the ten glass-walled suites also has its own plunge pool facing the same emptiness. This is a desert lodge rather than a Big Five safari, so the wildlife is sparse and the great dunes of Sossusvlei are a drive of over an hour. What you get instead is silence, sharp temperature swings between day and night, and some of the darkest skies anywhere, with a resident astronomer and a small observatory for after dark.

Location

Sossusvlei Desert, Namibia

Tranquility Index

95 / 100