Journeying through Botswana with Golden Africa Safaris’ luxury roving camp

If you are looking for a wild, immersive, incredible experience in the African bush… buckle up, this one’s for you.

I’ve just emerged from a 7-day adventure on a luxury roving camp with Golden Africa Safaris, where we stayed at 3 different locations throughout Botswana, moving across the Okavango Delta through the regions of Moremi, Khwai, and Chobe, in pursuit of all the country’s greatest wildlife, landscapes, and experiences. My mission was to experience the safari in its entirety, and capture content, so I can authentically and expertly recommend and book for my lovely audience and Adventurelust clients — like you, perhaps?! (let’s chat ☺️)

Botswana is very unique in that it is a flat country with seasonal differences that form around its flooding, which typically occurs in June-Aug and comes from the rains from Angola. This creates amazing opportunities for water-based safaris, scenic helicopter flights over the delta, and higher concentrations of wildlife on the islands formed from the flood. The country also offers a diversity of activities like mokoro rides through the waterways, quad biking in the salt pans, and more. Botswana is a very sought-after, luxurious, high-end safari destination, one that is very wild and remote and allows you to truly escape from civilization back home and immerse yourself in the bush.

The best way to do this is a roving camp like I went on, also referred to as a mobile camp. The concept allows us to experience different regions of the country and in between camps, the staff packs up the entire operation and moves it to the next site, leaving nothing but footprints. It’s an incredible way to disconnect and be at one with nature, sleeping in the bush, amongst the wild, as the animals call into the night.

For this trip I partnered with Rob and the team at Golden Africa Safaris with the help of my friend Hayley of Africa Hidden Gems. I was so so SO impressed by the calibre of these camps; amazing attention to detail and going the extra mile from the thoughtful decor and layout of the camps, friendly and endearing staff who like to tell us riddles around the campfire, spacious tents complete with flushing toilets, hot and cold water thermoses, a comfy bed with even a duvet and headboard, and a robe! Not to mention the fully kitted out vehicle with only 2 seats per row (window seats all around), multiple charge points, fully stocked refrigerator, we were easily cruisin’ on the most cush ride in the bush!

An MVP that has to be shouted out for this trip was our guide Moa (check him on Insta!), truly a class act, who led us across the country from Maun to Moremi to Khwai to Chobe. I can be quite picky with my guides (lol, what a diva) and honestly Moa hit the sweet spot — the perfect mix of knowledge and sharing information without shoving it in our face, being chill and reading the room, feeding us digestible bits of info and interacting with us and the bush so we truly got the MOST out of our experience. He listened to our needs with grace and kindness, whether it was needing a pee stop, tracking down a male lion over some tree stumps, or waiting for 3 hours for cubs to emerge from the bush. Also makes a mean G+T and choco-mocha-rula. Moa, if you’re reading this, YOU’RE A LEGEND AND I MISS YOU.

We stayed in the tents on Moremi and Chobe and split up the camps with a beautiful little lodge called Little Machaba, a traditional safari-style lodge in the Khwai concession, I absolutely loved how quiet and peaceful it was, with expansive views of the open flood plain where ellies would come to visit, MASSIVELY spacious tents with the most comfy king beds I’ve ever slept in, amazing staff (shout out to my gals MJ and Kim!), amazing little surprises like this pop-up picnic lunch in the bush that followed our helicopter flight — probably one of my top 5 mornings of life!

Throughout a 7-day safari in Botswana you see a LOT, there are also calm moments of driving through nature, but my highlights were definitely spending a full morning and evening game drive with my beloved leopard (check the links for reels/stories related to this sighting), this was so special and I was so happy to find a calm chilled leopard who let us admire her and her behaviours for so long. We had an EPIC wild dog sighting in Moremi, magical morning with giraffes, more hippos than i’ve ever seen in my life, tons of ellie encounters (here and here), truly such a magical experience with all my besties from the animal kingdom.

It really is the kind of magic you need to experience to understand. Email me at kellie@adventurelust.travel and let’s get started on your trip of a lifetime!