Botswana is the only country we plan.
A Botswana-based, Botswana-owned safari company, working out of Maun, Kasane and Gaborone. We have never sold anywhere else and have no plans to.
One country, 582,000 square kilometres.
Every guide on our roster, every camp on our list, every road, airstrip, water level and seasonal shift is something somebody here has seen for themselves. That is less a boast than a consequence: it is the only country we work in, so there is nothing else for us to be keeping track of.
Botswana has run a high-value, low-impact tourism policy for decades. Fewer visitors, smaller camps, more wilderness, tighter concession limits. It is why the country is still the least crowded premium safari destination in Africa, and it is also why local knowledge counts for more here than it does in places you can turn up and book.
The number of beds is limited and most concessions are private. Getting the right camp in the right month tends to come down to relationships rather than availability screens, and we hold ours in one country only.
Plan this country properly, at whatever budget somebody arrives with.
Most of what goes wrong on a safari is a planning failure rather than a bad camp: the wrong month, one stop too many, a water camp booked in a year the water did not come. Getting that right is the job, and it does not cost more to do it for somebody camping than for somebody in a villa.
Worth recommending to somebody you like.
We would rather be the company an advisor quietly passes a client to, or that a returning guest gives to a friend, than the one with the largest marketing spend. It is a slower way to grow and it depends entirely on the last trip having gone well.
What we actually hold to.
The same work at every price
Somebody on our cheapest mobile camping trip gets the same planning hours, the same standard of guide and the same response time as somebody in a private villa. Where you sleep is what changes.
Work ahead of the itinerary
Most of what our operations team does is checking the next two days rather than fixing the last one. When it works, guests never find out there was anything to fix.
Say the unhelpful thing
That your season is wrong for what you want to see. That a camp is not worth its rate this year. That a shorter trip done properly will beat the longer one you asked for. It costs us bookings and we would still rather do it.
Botswana first
Our guides are Batswana, our suppliers are registered here and the profits stay in the country. Guests travel with people who are at home in the place they are being shown.
Leave it intact
We work inside one of the last large intact ecosystems left anywhere. The test we apply to an itinerary is whether the places in it are better or worse off for our having sent people there.
One country, known completely
Knowing a single country well is a narrower skill than knowing a continent a little, and it is the more useful one here. You tend to notice the difference in the first ten minutes of a planning call.
Who you will actually deal with.
Travel Designers
Based in Maun and Gaborone. Botswana specialists who have personally travelled every route they sell and slept in the camps they recommend.
Safari Hosts
Accompany Signature and Grand journeys end to end, from the moment you land at Maun or Kasane to the moment you fly out.
Guides
Botswana Tourism Organisation-certified, drawn from the communities they guide in, with specialists in photography, birding, walking and San cultural interpretation.
Operations
Maun and Kasane. Charter coordination, camp liaison, and the duty desk, which has somebody sitting at it at three in the morning.
Guest Relations
Pre-departure preparation and post-travel follow-up, including the welcome-home call and the curated gallery afterwards.
Trade
A dedicated contact for international advisors, consortia and overseas operators, with same-day response. See our trade page.
Maun, Kasane and Gaborone.
Maun is our head office and the gateway to the Okavango: a working safari town and the busiest light-aircraft hub in southern Africa. Kasane runs the Chobe operation. Gaborone handles corporate and trade.
- Head officeMaun, Botswana
- Chobe officeKasane, Botswana
- Corporate & tradeGaborone, Botswana
- LanguagesEnglish, Setswana, French, German, Portuguese and Italian on request
Credentials worth checking.
- Botswana Tourism Organisation — licensed tour operator and destination management company
- HATAB — Hospitality and Tourism Association of Botswana
- Botswana Guides Association — member, and we fund guide certification
- Bonded and insured, with full financial and operating licensing
- Emergency medical evacuation cover on every journey we operate
Botswana is roughly the size of France, holds around 2.6 million people, and has set aside something close to two-fifths of its land for wildlife.Why the country feels as empty as it does
Tell us what you want this journey to feel like.
Not just what you want to see. Send a few lines about who is travelling and roughly when, and we will come back to you with something written for you rather than pulled off a shelf.