If you're combining a Kilimanjaro climb with a Tanzania safari, and many of our adventurers with Follow Alice do exactly this (it’s an amazing combination of experiences), you'll run into one practical problem before you've even left home: you need two completely different kits, and you can only carry one of them up the mountain.

On Kilimanjaro you're moving through five distinct climate zones in a matter of days, from warm rainforest at the gate to alpine desert and then the frozen scramble to Uhuru Peak. That means down jackets, thermal layers, a four-season sleeping bag, trekking poles. None of it is useful on a game drive. And your porters carry a strict weight limit per person, so "just bring everything" isn't really an option either.

The answer, in practice, is having one fixed point in Moshi where you split your luggage: climbing gear goes up the mountain with you, everything else waits behind, locked and accounted for, until you're back down and ready to head into the bush. For every Kilimanjaro and safari combo we run, that fixed point is Lindrin Lodge, and it's become as much a part of the trip as the mountain or the parks themselves.

Why we send our Follow Alice travellers here

Lindrin Lodge sits in Kimashuku-Mferejini, about 15 miles from Kilimanjaro International Airport (JRO) and a short, straightforward drive from central Moshi and the Kilimanjaro gate. Close enough that you're not losing half a day to transfers either side of your climb, far enough out that the grounds are properly quiet at night, with proper gardens and open-air seating rather than a guesthouse squeezed between shopfronts.

It's become our default basecamp because it works for the entire arc of a combo trip, not just one end of it. You land at JRO, come straight here to sleep off the flight. You leave from here for the mountain. You come back down several days dirtier and, frankly, a different person, and everything is exactly where you left it. You clean up, and you head out to the Serengeti or Ngorongoro from the same front door.

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The part you actually came here for: the luggage room

Lindrin has a dedicated, secure luggage room right next to reception, built for exactly this purpose. Before you head up the mountain, you hand over anything you don't need above the Barranco Wall (safari clothes, city shoes, laptops, chargers), and the front desk logs it against your name. When you're back down, you get it back against your signature, not just a claim ticket and a shrug. One traveler who used the room put it simply: they found it "very safe there," with staff who were "kind and helping" throughout. That's exactly the system working as it should.

Most of our clients arrive with a standard hard-shell suitcase, and that's what stays behind at Lindrin. Then, either you can bring your own or we can provide a duffle bag for the mountain, so you repack your climbing gear into that, while everything else, safari clothing, binoculars, and the rest, goes back into the suitcase and stays securely at the lodge.

It's a small thing until you're the one standing at 4,600 metres wondering whether you packed too much or too little. You didn't have to guess. All you need for the second leg of your trip is already sitting safely in a locked room in Moshi, waiting for you.

Most of our clients arrive with a standard hard-shell suitcase, and that's what stays behind at Lindrin. We provide a duffle bag for the mountain, so you repack your climbing gear into that, while everything else, safari clothing, binoculars, and the rest, goes back into the suitcase and stays securely at the lodge.

More than a place to leave your bags

It would undersell Lindrin to describe it as a secure drop point with beds attached. This is a beautiful, welcoming, authentic Tanzanian lodge, and the kind of place people actively look forward to getting back to

There's a swimming pool, free to use for anyone staying there, which after eight days on Kilimanjaro I am pretty sure you will find most welcome. There's a spa offering massage which can be a great relief for tired legs before you contemplate your long-haul flight home. The restaurant serves buffet-style meals, a genuine spread rather than a set menu, with local and international dishes and reviewers often calling out the food as good value and "delicious." Wide porches and shaded outdoor seating areas mean there's always somewhere to sit with a drink and not be inside.

And the staff are the part guests mention most. Reviewers name individual people by name, front desk staff, dining room staff, housekeeping, as the reason a stay felt personal rather than transactional. One reviewer summed up an entire trip report with a single line: it's the people you meet that make travel what it is. At Lindrin, that starts with the team who work there.

You'll meet more people than just your own group

This is the part that's easy to understate when we are writing our guides and is often unexpectedly lovely in person: Lindrin is a waypoint for a constant rotation of Kilimanjaro climbers, arriving nervous and excited, or coming back down muddy, sunburnt, and thrilled with themselves. You will end up sharing a table, a pool, or a porch with people from other groups entirely, trading stories about which day was hardest and the indescribable feeling of summit success.

Many Follow Alice travellers have mentioned making real friends during a stay that was only meant to be a stopover. One trip report described dancing on the grass under the moonlight to live music on the night they came off the mountain, an entirely spontaneous, unplanned end to a climb that had nothing to do with an itinerary and everything to do with who happened to be there that week. That's not something we can promise will happen to you specifically, but it's a recurring theme  in how people describe this place, and it's part of why we keep sending climbers here rather than a purely functional western-style hotel.

Lindrin holds a 4.4 out of 5 rating on TripAdvisor from over 50 reviews, and currently ranks among the top 20% of specialty lodging in Moshi. That's not us saying it's the best place in town. It's what the people who've actually stayed there keep saying, independently.

How we build it into your trip

When you book a Kilimanjaro climb and Tanzania safari with us, Lindrin gets built into the plan as your basecamot, not an afterthought. On all of our Kilimanjaro climbs your arrival night and final night’s accommodation at Lindrin are always included along with breakfast and dinner.

Your climb guide knows what's coming back down the mountain with you and what's staying behind. Your safari vehicle knows where to collect you and your bags from. You're not holding two separate sets of logistics together in your head while you're also trying to breathe at altitude.

If this is your first time thinking through what actually goes in a climbing bag versus what waits at the lodge, our beginner's guide to climbing Kilimanjaro and our rundown of what to know before you climb go into the packing list in more detail than I have room for here.

What I'd actually tell you, if we were on a call together, is this: don't let the luggage storage puzzle be the thing you worry about. It's a solved problem, and it comes with a pool, a decent meal, and a good chance you'll leave with a few new friends you didn't expect to make!

Ready to plan your Kilimanjaro and safari combo?

Book a call with our team and we'll walk through the logistics, timing, and packing for both legs of your trip.