A small dinner barge drifts on the mirror-still lagoon at dusk, guests at a set table, the tree-covered island and lodge reflected behind

Botswana  ·  Okavango Delta

Xugana Island Lodge

Xugana Lagoon, the finest permanent water site in the Delta, at the end of a river that never reaches the sea.

The Okavango is a river that never reaches the sea. It rises in the highlands of Angola, runs south, and then simply gives up on the idea of an ocean, spreading its water across the sands of the Kalahari until the desert has drunk its fill. What remains is a wilderness of freshwater lagoons, channels and islands, which is a rather poetic outcome for a river that lost its way.

Xugana Lagoon is widely regarded as the finest permanent water site in the entire Delta, and Xugana Island Lodge sits on it. Permanent is the important word. This is water that stays, which means the lodge's world is one of channels and reflections whatever the calendar says.

Aerial view of a deep blue lagoon cutting through pale grassland, a wooded island jutting into the water with the lodge hidden in its trees
Xugana Lagoon from the air
The days are measured in lagoon light, and the sound you fall asleep to is not tyres on gravel but something considerably wetter.

An island lodge in the Delta changes how you move. The bush is approached by water, the days are measured in lagoon light, and the sound you fall asleep to is not tyres on gravel but something considerably wetter.

Africa's largest oasis, and a lodge on the best-watered corner of it. Some claims are easy to make. This one is easy to check.

01

The lodge

A thatched bedroom with a white four-poster net over the bed, doors open onto a timber deck and the lagoon shining beyond the reeds
A room with the lagoon at the door
An open-sided thatched lounge and bar with red-framed canvas chairs, a woven pendant light and a big tree trunk in the foreground
The bar, under thatch
Dining tables laid on a broad timber deck beneath the trees, low sun flaring off the lagoon through the branches
Tables on the deck, late sun

02

Evenings

A long table dressed in white linen on the deck between tall trees, with the open-fronted lounge to one side and the lagoon glowing through the foliage
One long table, under the trees
A bed turned down for the night under a white canopy, towels folded into swans and petals scattered across the cover, leather trunks at the foot
Turned down for the night
A guide with a rifle leads three guests on foot beneath a huge shade tree on open grassland, the sun flaring through the canopy
On foot, under the big treesOkavango Delta

Xugana Island Lodge

Ask us about Xugana.

We put together safari itineraries built around places like this one. Tell us when you are thinking of travelling and we will come back to you with options.

Start an enquiry More lodges in Botswana