Samkani Camp is set to be one of the Best New Hotels for 2027

A&K Sanctuary's Samkani Camp is opening in late 2027 and gives you the rare oppurtunity to stay on the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, on the salt itself rather than at its edge. It is built entirely from Airstreams: five architect-designed suites, plus a sixth at the centre holding the dining room, the lounge and a bar. Outside, the polished metal picks up the white of the salt and the blue of the sky. Inside, the suites are finished in blue Bolivian marble and chrome. Each one runs self-sufficiently. The salt flat covers more than ten thousand, five hundred square kilometres and holds no shade, no landmarks and almost no sound. The nearest people are usually twenty to thirty kilometres away.

What the place does with weather is the reason people come. From December to April the rains lay a film of water across the salt and the whole plain turns into a mirror, so precise that the horizon disappears and you walk on cloud. In the dry months the surface cracks into hexagons that run to the edge of sight. At night there is no light for hundreds of kilometres. The sky fills with more stars than most people have ever seen. A private guide and driver come with every stay. More than thirty excursions lead across the flats to hidden islands and volcanic caves, several of them arranged for these guests alone.

A&K Sanctuary is the lodge, camp and riverboat collection of Abercrombie & Kent, the company Geoffrey Kent founded in Kenya in 1962 and which has spent sixty years learning how to put comfortable rooms in places that resist them. The design here draws directly on the low-impact mobile camps A&K developed across Africa, adapted for one of the most exposed environments in South America, where there is nothing to shelter behind.

The suite interiors will feature Bolivian blue marble and chrome details, while the dining area includes a bar. From the exterior to the inside, the project offers a much more refined take on “living in a trailer.” But the most exciting part is still imagining how much time you can spend just staring out the window after waking up each day. Running it is a Bolivian team with decades of experience on the altiplano, which matters more than it sounds in a landscape that gives up nothing to a visitor without a guide. Few places let guests sleep out on the salar itself. This will be one of them.

For Bookings and Enquiries please visit Samkani Camp | Luxury Camp in Uyuni, Bolivia | A&K Sanctuary | Abercrombie & Kent