Mokolwane Plains Announced

If I wasn’t already going to Botswana three times next year, I’d be excited about this property.  And if I also didn’t already know it was coming, and hadn’t already booked to go in September, I’d be really excited.

Botswana’s luxury safari scene is having a moment. Singita finally arrives in the Okavango Delta with Elela this December, and now there’s a second date for the diary. Natural Selection has announced Mokolwane Plains, opening in July 2027 in one of the quietest corners of the Delta.  The same Natural Selection that gave us the rather brilliant Tawana.

Mokolwane Plains sits on the Xudum River in NG29, a private concession in the southern Delta covering around 200,000 hectares. It will share all of that with just one other camp: Mokolwane, its lower-end sibling, also by Natural Selection. That’s a lot of wilderness per guest.

Press releases aren’t famous for modesty, but according to Natural Selection, NG29 has the third-highest recorded leopard density in Africa and is home to the Xudum Pride, which they describe as Africa’s largest lion pride. Filmmaker Brad Bestelink has been based here for 25 years, and both the BBC’s Big Cats 24/7 and Netflix’s Living with Leopards were filmed on the concession. Wild dog, cheetah and hyena are here too, along with big herds of elephant and buffalo and more than 400 bird species.

Get busy with day and night game drives, walks, boating, seasonal mokoro trips and helicopter flights on top. The camp is also funding a ranger base with the Botswana Defence Force, giraffe research, and conservation education in nearby villages.

It opens with five suites and grows to nine in 2028, adding a family suite and a two-bedroom private villa. Each suite has 100 square metres of air-conditioned space, a private plunge pool, and indoor and outdoor showers. The main area is built around an old fig tree, with an 18-metre pool, spa, gym, wine cellar and a fire deck over the water. It’s fully solar-powered, and children are welcome from six. The walkways dip down in places so elephants can keep wandering through the unfenced camp. They were there first.