Tawana is the new one: an eight-suite camp that opened in 2024 on the perennial Gomoti River in the south-eastern corner of Moremi Game Reserve, built in partnership with the Batawana, run on solar, with a plunge pool on every terrace. Camp Moremi is the old one, completely rebuilt in 2018 as a modern lodge, with a reputation for the classic safari that it earned long before the rebuild. If you want a large suite, a private pool and a river that keeps flowing when the rest of the Delta dries, choose Tawana. If you want the version of safari most people picture before they have been on one, updated rather than reinvented, choose Camp Moremi. Same reserve, different camps, and neither is the consolation prize.
Updated 23-Oct-2026
Photography courtesy of Natural Selection
The confusion is understandable. Both camps are in Moremi Game Reserve in the Okavango Delta, and Tawana takes its name from Chief Tawana Moremi, paramount chief of the Batawana, which puts “Moremi” into both names by two different routes. Our own Tawana page carries the line “not to be confused with Camp Moremi, which is a different lodge altogether”. This post is where we do the confusing properly.
What does Tawana offer that Camp Moremi does not?
Newness, size and a river with a name. Tawana opened in 2024 with eight suites, five standard and three family, each around 100 square metres (about 130 for the family suites), with a separate lounge, an outdoor sala, a bath, a shower indoors and another out, and a plunge pool on a private terrace facing the floodplain. The suites stand raised on walkways, which matters when the elephant come past underneath. The main area has a 16-metre lap pool, a walk-in wine bar, a wood-fired pizza oven, a firepit, a gym and a small library on Moremi and Batawana history. The whole camp runs on solar, and the minibar is included rather than itemised.
The Gomoti is perennial. When the seasonal water pulls back from the rest of the Delta, the river keeps flowing past the front of camp and the animals follow it, which is the sort of fact that sounds dull on paper and feels very clever once the floodplain has dried. Lion, leopard and African wild dog are the predators seen closest to camp; red lechwe and sitatunga graze the floodplain, hippo hold the lagoons, and more than 400 bird species have been recorded in the reserve. Activities run to game drives, boat safaris, bush sundowners, helicopter flights and birding.
Then there is the story, which is Tawana’s alone. In 1963 the chief’s father and grandmother gave up the family’s ancestral hunting grounds so that the reserve could exist. Sixty years on, the current chief partnered with Natural Selection on the build, women from the local basket-weaving centre make pieces for the camp and its shop, and the camp runs an early learning centre with the Shorobe community. The architecture is by Michael Kornmuller, and Robb Report named the camp one of its 50 Best Hotels in the World for 2026.
What is Camp Moremi’s case?
Legacy, and a rebuild that respected it. Camp Moremi has been known for years as a camp that delivers the classic African safari, the version most people picture before they have ever been on one, and in 2018 it was completely rebuilt as a modern safari lodge. That is a braver decision than it sounds: rebuild a legacy badly and you have a new lodge with an old name. The photographs on our Camp Moremi page suggest the trick came off. A main lounge open to the bush on every side, dinner beside a tree, a fire at sunset, a guest room with the doors open, and hippo watched from a boat. Classic safari, contemporary lodge, and the wildlife, as the page puts it, does not care what year the lodge was built.
What our Camp Moremi page does not tell you, and we would rather say so than guess: how many rooms there are, which river or lagoon the boat goes out on, where in the reserve the camp sits, and how you get there. Ask us and we will find out from the operator before you book. We are not going to invent a suite count to make a tidy table.
Which camp suits which traveller?
| Tawana | Camp Moremi | |
|---|---|---|
| Opened or rebuilt | Opened 2024 | Completely rebuilt 2018 |
| Rooms | 8 suites (5 standard, 3 family), about 100 sq m, private plunge pools | Not stated on our page |
| Water | The Gomoti River, perennial, in front of camp | Boat safaris (hippo from the boat); the river is not named on our page |
| Getting there | Fly to Maun, then helicopter into camp or light aircraft to Santawani airstrip and a road transfer | Not stated on our page |
| Main area | 16 m lap pool, walk-in wine bar, pizza oven, firepit, gym, library | Main lounge open on every side, dinner beside the tree, fireside at sunset |
| Best for | A new camp, a private pool, families (three family suites), the Batawana story | The classic safari in a modern lodge |
So which one?
If you have been on safari before and want the suite to be part of the holiday, with a pool to yourself and a coffee machine that grinds its own beans at 05:30, Tawana. If it is a first safari and you want the archetype done well, a lounge open on every side and a fire at sunset, Camp Moremi has been doing exactly that for long enough to have been rebuilt around it. Families have a clear steer: Tawana’s three family suites at about 130 square metres are a fact on the page; Camp Moremi’s family arrangements are something we would check for you.
Both camps sit on our Botswana list alongside their neighbours, and both pages have the photographs. Tell us which of the two you keep coming back to and we will tell you what we know about the other.
