Tenting Hostels

The tents I saw in Kenya were on little platforms to keep the hippos out, so they weren’t going to be moved anywhere. You’re right to keep your placement flexible. Putting plumbing in the tents might be bad for winter anyway, because with canvas walls it would be really hard to prevent frozen pipes unless they were drained completely.

I recently visited Shkedi’s Camplodge in Neot Hakikar, Israel. They have bungalows rather than safari tents, but they have a similar arrangement with bathrooms outside of the cabins. They did a really nice job of setting up a shower block with individual toilet and shower stalls. The sinks are just outside of the stalls so that when a guest uses a sink, toilet, or shower all of the other facilities are all still available for other guests.

Youth Hostel Plakias in Crete is also a great example of a hostel with a good bathroom block. I didn’t take any pictures of it when I was there, but maybe Gordo could post one. They also have dorms in bungalows.

Depending on the size of your tents, it would probably be easier to make them doubles or twins rather than dorms. You could put those inside the house, or you might find some really big canvas tents at Army/Navy surplus stores that could work for dorms.