Two elephants, an adult and a calf, walk through dry bush with dust rising around their feet in low sun

Botswana · Lipadi Private Game & Wilderness Reserve

Saleda Lodge

Five king bedrooms, one open-plan heart with a pool table, and a great many stars: a safari that feels like a house party in the bush.

Saleda Lodge sits in the Lipadi Private Game & Wilderness Reserve and is built for a group that wants a place to itself. There are five king-sized bedrooms, each with its own en suite bathroom and a private outdoor shower, which is one of the small pleasures of the bush that nobody adequately prepares you for. Showering under an open sky changes your relationship with the morning.

The central unit is where a stay here actually happens: an open-plan kitchen, dining and living area, with an impressive staircase climbing to a lounge and a pool table. That last detail tells you what sort of lodge this is. Saleda is for friends and families who intend to spend the evenings together, with the day's sightings argued over across the green baize.

Wicker sofas with striped cushions around a slab-timber table under a thatched roof, an infinity pool and a river beyond the deck — The open-air lounge, pool and river

Five rooms, one table, and a great many stars.

Then there is the ending. A romantic sundowner, followed by stargazing with someone you like, under a sky with considerably more in it than the one at home. The lodge suggests this itself, and we would not argue.

Five rooms, one table, and a great many stars. For a group who want a safari that feels like a house party in the bush, this is the shape of it.

The house

Two thatched rondavels beneath a large tree, with a curved, stone-edged plunge pool in front reflecting the branches — Thatch and plunge pool

A curved concrete bar counter built around two weathered tree trunks, with a beehive-shaped plaster fireplace beside it and a wine rack on the wall — The bar, built around the trees

A king bed with a carved wooden headboard, copper pendant lamps either side and a giraffe-print artwork above — One of five king bedrooms

Out on the reserve

A male lion stands at the edge of a muddy waterhole, looking straight at the camera, a mound of dark earth behind him — Male lion at the waterhole

Two armchairs on a timber deck face a wide river under a blazing orange sunset, branches silhouetted overhead — Sundowner, from the deck

The view from the driver's seat of an open game-drive vehicle: a sandy track running into the bush under a storm-lit sunset sky — Heading home at duskLipadi Private Game & Wilderness Reserve

Saleda Lodge

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