A long pool and a row of timber loungers under white umbrellas on a deck at the edge of a flooded grass plain, leaves overhead against a clear blue sky

Botswana · Sanctuary Retreats

Sanctuary Chiefs Camp

Comfort that feels natural to the place rather than imported into it.

Sanctuary Chiefs Camp belongs to the Sanctuary Retreats portfolio, a collection of safari lodges and river cruise boats built around a single phrase: luxury, naturally. It is a good phrase because it is a small one.

The idea is that the boutique experience should come with a promise of authenticity attached, that comfort and the real Africa should not be at odds.

Canvas director's chairs ring a fire pit on a sand floor at the water's edge, hurricane lanterns on hooked stands, cream sofas and a bottle of wine in the foreground, flooded grassland beyond — The fire pit, late afternoon

A Sanctuary camp is never a template dropped into a landscape; it is a response to one.

What distinguishes the portfolio is that no two properties look alike. Each is designed individually for its own setting, so a Sanctuary camp is never a template dropped into a landscape; it is a response to one. Chiefs Camp is the expression of that thinking in its own corner of the bush.

We are always slightly wary of philosophies in hospitality. Most of them are printed on a card in the room and forgotten. This one is at least the right ambition: that the comfort should feel natural to the place rather than imported into it, and that the place should remain the point.

The camp

A bedroom under white netting: a four-poster bed with lime-green cushions and a beaded headboard screen, two cream armchairs, and a leather-strapped trunk holding binoculars, green glass bottles and a hat; a bathroom with twin basins through the doorway — A bedroom under white netting

The lounge under a high thatched roof: beaded chandeliers, white-cushioned armchairs, patterned scatter cushions and a bar at the back — The lounge, under thatch

Two figures stand on a rock under the Milky Way, one with a rifle slung over a shoulder, their head-torch beams cutting up into a sky full of stars — Head torches under the Milky WayAfter dark

Out from camp

Seen from above, a poler stands in a mokoro on a dark, winding channel between banks of bright green grass, lily pads floating to one side — A mokoro on the channel, from above

An open game-drive vehicle with three people aboard sits in tall golden grass at sunset, fan palms and a dead tree behind — Game drive, last light

A blue and white helicopter flies low over flooded grassland, its shadow and the channels of water below — Low over the floodplain

A poler stands at the stern of a mokoro carrying two guests, one raising a camera, as the sun sets behind palms and reeds and the scene reflects in the water — Sunset, by mokoroSanctuary Chiefs Camp

Sanctuary Chiefs Camp

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