Botswana has become one of the leading examples in the world of how luxury tourism and conservation can work hand in hand. The country follows a low-volume, high-value model, which means fewer visitors, less pressure on fragile ecosystems, and more resources directed toward protecting wildlife and supporting local communities. For travelers who care about where their money goes, this approach makes Botswana a destination where every stay has an impact.
High-end safari camps here are not only designed for comfort and exclusivity, but also built around sustainability. Many operate entirely on solar power, use innovative water recycling systems, and limit their footprint with eco-sensitive construction. Beyond infrastructure, these camps fund anti-poaching patrols, rhino reintroduction programs, wildlife research, and community partnerships that directly support the people and species of Botswana.
Choosing a conservation-focused camp in Botswana means your safari doesn’t just deliver privacy, and extraordinary wildlife viewing; it actively contributes to keeping these wild landscapes intact for future generations.
Botswana’s Low-Volume, High-Impact Tourism Model
From the mighty Okavango Delta to the silent Kalahari sands, Botswana has become Africa’s model for ecotourism. The country deliberately limits visitor numbers and focuses on upscale, conservation-driven safaris that generate significant revenue with minimal environmental footprint. Exclusivity is by design: even in prime game areas, you might not see another vehicle all day, and luxury camps host only a dozen or so guests, ensuring privacy and personalized care. Importantly, tourism here is not a passive spectacle but a protective force. Strict green building standards, bans on off-road driving in reserves, and support for anti-poaching have kept Botswana’s wilderness astonishingly intact, a haven where elephants still roam in herds of hundreds and lions hunt freely on open floodplains.
By choosing Botswana, you are contributing to a bold national experiment in conservation through luxury. The camps below exemplify this ethos, each one a jewel of comfort set in remote wilds, with a mission to make a positive impact.
Mombo Camp – Luxury with a Legacy of Conservation
Mombo Camp sits on legendary Chief’s Island in the Okavango Delta’s Moremi Game Reserve, a place so abundant in wildlife it’s nicknamed the “Place of Plenty.” Rebuilt recently to the highest eco-standards, Mombo offers nine expansive tented suites elevated above the floodplains for panoramic views. Guests enjoy every creature comfort: plunge pools on their verandas, indoor and outdoor showers, fine dining under the stars, and even a gym and spa with delta vistas. The entire camp is 100% solar-powered and constructed with natural, locally sourced materials that blend into the environment. Wastewater is carefully treated and waste minimized to keep the surrounding delta pristine.
Importantly, Mombo is steeped in conservation impact. It became the epicenter of Botswana’s rhino rescue efforts, with a pioneering project reintroducing both black and white rhinos into the Delta’s safe haven after poaching decimated populations elsewhere. Sightings of these rare rhinos, once extinct in the area, are now a thrilling possibility for guests.
The camp also funds and hosts ongoing wildlife research, from big cats to wetland ecology, ensuring that tourism dollars directly support science and protection on the ground. Mombo’s parent company (Wilderness Safaris) partners with local communities for employment and shares revenues through community trusts, so nearby villages tangibly benefit from conservation. As a result, many of the attentive staff guiding your safari or serving your dinner come from local tribes, proud to showcase their natural heritage.
Duba Plains – Great Plains Conservation’s Crown Jewel
If Botswana had an iconic power couple of conservation, it would be Dereck and Beverly Joubert, National Geographic filmmakers who made the remote Duba Plains famous in their documentaries. Today Duba Plains Camp, set on a 33,000-hectare private reserve in the northern Delta, is the flagship of Great Plains Conservation and a living testament to their vision. The camp’s five lavish tents (plus an exclusive two-bedroom villa) evoke a 1920s safari romance, with brass bathtubs, leather armchairs, Persian rugs, and campaign furniture under billowing canvas. Each tent is raised on reclaimed railway sleepers with expansive decks, plunge pools, and uninterrupted views of floodplains teeming with wildlife. In fact, Duba’s wildlife is extraordinary: famous lion prides that learned to hunt buffalo by daylight, elephants splashing through swamps, secretive leopards and packs of endangered wild dogs. And because Duba Plains is the only camp in this vast concession, every game drive is a private show, no crowds.
But as plush and exclusive as Duba is, what truly sets it apart is its conservation mission. Great Plains operates all its camps under a philosophy of “100% conservation, 100% luxury, compromising neither while maximizing both”. The camp itself is built from natural and recycled materials and runs almost entirely on solar power to minimize carbon footprint.
Beyond the camp, Great Plains drives numerous initiatives that guests indirectly support. A nightly conservation levy from each visitor helps fund the Great Plains Foundation, which manages over a million acres of protected lands. These funds sponsor community-led projects like the Great Plains Earth Academy, where local youth receive conservation education and hospitality training to become the next generation of wildlife guardians.They support the all-female ranger unit that patrols Great Plains reserves, empowering local women as protectors and role models in the fight against poaching.
Great Plains was also a key player in the groundbreaking Rhinos Without Borders program, translocating 87 rhinos from high-poaching zones in South Africa to safer wild havens in Botswana.Thanks to this effort, rhinos now roam free in the Okavango, and seeing one on safari has become possible again.
Community partnerships are equally woven into Duba’s DNA. The camp works closely with its nearest communities through land-lease fees, employment, and projects that spread the benefits of ecotourism. In the broader area, Great Plains sponsors local schools and clinics, runs a “Conservation Camp for Kids,” and initiatives like “Solar Mamas” (training village women as solar engineers to bring electricity to remote villages). Guests may not see these projects firsthand, but they’ll feel the difference: staff who are passionate locals, a region where people value wildlife as an asset, and a safari experience enriched with cultural integrity.
Xigera Safari Lodge – Artistry, Culture and 100% Solar Sustainability
Xigera (pronounced kee-jera) Safari Lodge is a newer star on Botswana’s luxury safari scene, but it has quickly earned a reputation as one of Africa’s most sustainable and design-forward lodges. Opened in 2020 in the western Okavango Delta, Xigera was conceived as a “love letter to the African bush” by the Tollman family (of Red Carnation Hotels), and it shows in every exquisite detail. The lodge is an art gallery in the wilderness, showcasing over 100 bespoke works by African artists and craftsmen. Sculptural furniture, hand-carved doors, bold textiles and ceramics infuse each space with a sense of place and creativity. The 12 spacious suites are all different, filled with curated art and featuring indoor-outdoor flow that immerses you in nature, including secluded outdoor “star beds” and a remarkable three-story Baobab Treehouse for adventurous sleep-outs under the stars. From a floating meditation deck to an open-fire boma for storytelling evenings, Xigera has been designed to delight the senses and honor Botswana’s culture. Guests here might start the day with yoga as the sun rises over the floodplains, spend afternoons gliding in a glass-bottom mokoro canoe, and end with a fireside dinner accompanied by traditional songs, all curated to forge a deep connection with the land and its people.
Underlying this beauty is a serious commitment to environmental sustainability. Xigera is entirely solar powered, over 1,500 solar panels supply almost 100% of the lodge’s energy needs, making it one of the greenest camps in Africa. During construction, not a single tree was cut down; instead the lodge was ingeniously built to fit around ancient trees and to “flow” with the natural contours of the island. Suites are raised off the ground to allow wildlife to pass and to prevent soil erosion, and the architecture’s organic curves mirror the delta’s channels. Water is treated and recycled on-site, single-use plastics are banned, and even the supply chain is thoughtfully local, much of the food, linens, and spa products are sourced within Botswana to reduce transport impact.
In essence, Xigera lives by the mantra that luxury and sustainability not only coexist, but enhance one another. “Conservation and sustainability are at the heart of Xigera,” the founders say, the lodge runs on solar energy, eliminates plastics, and “pours enormous effort into partnering with local communities” for empowerment and employment. Indeed, most of Xigera’s staff hail from nearby villages, and the lodge invests in training and career development. The artistic focus itself is a form of community support: by commissioning dozens of local artisans (from bronze sculptors to basket weavers) to create Xigera’s decor, the project injected income into creative communities and helped preserve Botswana’s cultural heritage. Guests can even visit craft workshops or meet the artists, adding a rich cultural dimension to the safari. The result is an experience that feels soulful and inclusive; you indulge in spectacular comfort, yet everything around you quietly tells a story of respect: for the environment, for culture, and for the future. Xigera proves that a safari lodge can be a benchmark of sustainability without losing any of the magic or romance that defines a luxury safari.
Jack’s Camp – Old-World Glamour and Community in the Makgadikgadi
Not all of Botswana’s great camps sit in the Okavango Delta. Venture into the dramatic Makgadikgadi Pans of the Kalahari, and you find Jack’s Camp, a legendary tented camp that marries vintage style with a deep commitment to community and conservation in a harsh desert setting. Originally established in the 1960s by explorer Jack Bousfield, the camp was later rebuilt by his family in a 1940s East African safari style, and staying here truly feels like stepping back in time. The nine canvas tents, freshly renovated to an even grander scale, are opulently furnished with Persian rugs, paraffin lanterns, four-poster beds draped in gauzy netting, and antique cabinets of curiosities displaying Bushmen artifacts and desert wonders. There’s an old-world mess tent housing a natural history library and a teak billiards table (cocktails and a game of snooker amid antique maps and ostrich eggs, anyone?), a Persian tea tent for afternoon mint tea, and even a canvas-enclosed swimming pool pavilion, a blissful respite in the midday heat. At Jack’s, modern electricity is minimal (though the new tents discreetly offer solar-powered overhead fans and charging points); the ambience is illuminated by lanterns and the Milky Way, romantic and low-impact.
Heritage and Comfort in the Kalahari. Despite its whimsical luxury, Jack’s Camp is deeply rooted in where it stands, on the ancestral lands of the Zu/’hoasi Bushmen on the edge of Makgadikgadi Pans National Park. Every visit here is a chance to engage with the local San people, some of whom work as expert trackers guiding guests on daily bush walks. Walking with the Bushmen is a highlight: these master storytellers share their profound knowledge of desert ecology, showing you how to find water in tubers, identify animal tracks, or coax a scorpion from its hole, offering a moving glimpse into one of the world’s oldest surviving cultures. Jack’s has made it a priority to preserve this cultural heritage; by providing employment and partnership to the Bushmen, the camp helps keep their traditions alive in a rapidly changing world. Guests often describe the Bushman walk as an eye-opening, even life-changing experience that brings a new appreciation of human coexistence with nature.
Conservation-wise, Jack’s Camp (as part of Natural Selection safaris) channels a portion of every guest’s stay into critical projects aimed at safeguarding the unique Kalahari ecosystem. The surrounding grasslands and pans are home to desert-adapted species like the brown hyena, aardvark, and Africa’s second-largest zebra migration, species that get less attention than the Big Five but are no less important. Jack’s is helping to restore ancient wildlife migration corridors by working with communities and authorities to remove fencing and plan land use that allows animals to move freely again. The camp supports the Mmogo Coexistence Project, which introduces predator-safe livestock enclosures and rapid-response teams in local villages to reduce conflicts between farmers and lions or leopards. This is crucial in the Makgadikgadi where communities live adjacent to wild lands; by preventing lion attacks on cattle, the project prevents retaliatory hunting of big cats, enabling people and carnivores to share the landscape.
Another initiative is the Makgadikgadi Predator and Elephant Monitoring program, which Jack’s helps fund to provide data for conservation planning (such as tracking elephant movements with GPS collars to mitigate human-elephant conflicts). Natural Selection also runs outreach like Wild Shots Outreach and Coaching Conservation, which use photography and sports to engage local youth in wildlife conservation education. In short, this eccentric camp is a catalyst for big impact in its community. “When you visit Jack’s Camp, you are directly supporting [our] conservation initiatives,” Natural Selection emphasizes, from human-wildlife coexistence to scientific research. And the results are visible: during your stay you might see a collared elephant trudging peacefully across the pan or meet a young local who interned with Jack’s as part of a training program.
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Start thinking about your experience. These itineraries are simply suggestions for how you could enjoy some of the same experiences as our specialists. They're just for inspiration, because your trip will be created around your particular spaces.
