Tawana

Tawana is known for its partnership with the Batawana: the current chief partnered with Natural Selection on the build, women from the local basket-weaving centre make pieces for the camp and its gift shop, and the camp runs an early learning centre with the Shorobe community. It was named one of Robb Report's 50 Best Hotels in the World for 2026.

That is the short version. The longer one begins in 1963, when the chief's father and grandmother gave up the family's hunting grounds so that this corner of the Delta could be protected. Sixty years on, the family is back on the land as a partner rather than a patron, and the camp carries the chief's name. The architecture is by Michael Kornmuller, and the design takes its colours from the landscape outside and its patterns from Batawana work: the baskets, the woven light shades, the odd deliberate stripe.

The eight suites are generous for a camp this size. Each has a bedroom and a separate lounge, a sala outside for the hours when the bedroom is too warm and the deck is too bright, and a plunge pool on a private terrace that looks across the floodplain. Inside there is a bath, a shower indoors and another outdoors, air conditioning over the bed, a bean-to-cup coffee machine, tea, and a minibar that is included rather than itemised. Weights and a yoga mat are provided in the suite, for those who feel the need. Spa treatments can be arranged in-suite at an extra cost. The three family suites run to about 130 square metres.

The main area is the sort of place where the afternoon disappears. There is a lounge and bar, dining indoors and out, a wood-fired pizza oven, and a walk-in wine bar with a tiled counter and a small library on Moremi and Batawana history, which is the correct order in which to spend an hour. Outside, a 16-metre lap pool runs along the deck for anyone who wants to pretend they are exercising, and a firepit sits in a ring of lanterns and poles beyond it. There is a gym, and a gift shop stocked by the weavers. The whole camp runs on solar, and the lights at dusk are the warm, low kind that let the plain outside keep its colour.

Tawana is open year round. From July to October the floodplains fill and large herds spread across the wider Delta; as the water recedes, game gathers along the Gomoti River past camp. The first summer rains arrive in November and draw breeding elephant herds into the mopane woodland, and the arrival of summer migrants makes it the best season for birders.

The Gomoti is perennial, which matters more than it sounds. When the seasonal water pulls back from the rest of the Delta, the river keeps flowing past the front of the camp, and the animals follow it.

Lion, leopard and African wild dog are the predators seen closest to camp. Red lechwe and sitatunga graze the floodplain, hippo hold the lagoons of the Gomoti, Nile crocodile lie along the banks, buffalo and elephant move through, and more than 400 bird species have been recorded in Moremi Game Reserve.

Wild dog are the ones to ask about. They are not a species you can promise anywhere, but this is wild dog country, and the camp lists them alongside lion and leopard as regulars rather than rumours. Leopard are the quieter neighbours: a tree with a horizontal branch and a good view is usually the first place to look. Lion tend to favour the termite mounds for the same reason, and have been photographed from the vehicles using one as a viewing platform while a row of blanketed guests used the vehicle as theirs.

The river does the rest. Hippo in the lagoons, crocodile on the sand, lechwe splashing across the shallows, and, from the first rains, elephant herds pushing into the mopane behind camp. Suites are raised, the walkways are raised, and the ground below is left to whoever wants to use it.