Okavango Under Canvas
- 8 days
- Moremi · Khwai · eastern Delta
- Kalahari Collection
- from USD 250 pp/day
A mobile camp is a crew, a truck and a set of walk-in tents that go up in the afternoon and come down after you leave. Ours travels with a guide and a cook who stay with you the whole eight days, and it pitches in private campsites that nobody else can book while you are in them.
The tents are walk-in canvas with real bedrolls, not backpacking domes. There is a hot bucket shower filled when you ask for it, a long table under a tree, and a fire the cook works over three times a day. No fence, no generator, no other camp in sight. Most nights something comes through: hyena at two in the morning is common, and it is not unusual to find elephant browsing forty metres off while you are eating breakfast.
It is close to how Botswana was travelled fifty years ago, with better mattresses. It is also the least expensive way into this part of the country, which surprises people who assume the cheapest option must be the compromised one.
How the days run
- Day 1Arrive in Maun. Meet your guide and crew, kit check, and the drive into Moremi Game Reserve. First camp pitched before sundowners.
- Days 2–3Moremi — the Delta's protected heart. Full days on the floodplains and Xakanaxa lagoons, where the predator density is the highest in the country.
- Day 4North to the Khwai community area. Afternoon drive along the river, where elephant cross at dusk and wild dog den in season.
- Day 5A full day in Khwai, including a mokoro morning poled through the reed channels by a Motswana poler from the village.
- Days 6–7The eastern Delta channels. Game drives, walking with your guide where the concession permits it, and two nights in the quietest campsite of the trip.
- Day 8A last morning drive, then the road back to Maun and your onward flight.
- Best monthsMay to October, when the flood is up and the tracks are dry
- Where you sleepWalk-in canvas tents with bedrolls, hot bucket showers and a private campsite each night
- Who it suitsYounger travellers, seasoned campers, budget-conscious families and anyone who wants wilderness over thread count
- Who it may not suitAnyone who wants a pool, electricity and a solid roof every night. A lodge-based journey in the Delta Collection suits them better.
