Natural Selection – a welcome addition to Botswana’s luxury lodge market

A few weeks ago, I got back from Botswana, where I headed out with about five seconds’ notice to try Natural Selection’s Premier Camps.  That’s Jack’s Camp, North Island Okavango, Tuludi, and Tawana.  They also have lower-tier operations in Namibia and South Africa, but we at Dorsia focus on the ultra-luxury end of things — the glossy collector’s editions, not the fold-out flyers for a Diddy Freakoff in a car park.

Natural Selection have been around since 2016, set up by a group of long-time safari veterans, most of whom don’t just know the industry, they helped build it.  You’ve got founders who previously helped build Wilderness Safaris and Great Plains, so they weren’t exactly new to the party.

Natural Selection first made a bit of a name for itself with North Island Okavango, mostly because it launched with just three rooms.  Which sounds bold and exclusive, until you realise that’s a well-worn trick in the safari world.  Build three, call it intimate, and quietly add the rest when that sweet dollar starts rolling in.  Turns out it’s expensive to build rooms.

North Island now has seven rooms, with talks of a villa on the way.  Still small, still high-end — just not quite the minimalist masterpiece the original marketing suggested.  It’s a bit like my PR team leading with how intelligent and devastatingly attractive I am.  I too can pull it off, just as long as no one looks at me or hears what I have to say.

But clearly, Tawana is them gunning for something bigger—a move into the top tier, not just in Botswana, but across Africa.

But this brings me to the issue of inconsistency.  Jack’s Camp has zero mention of Natural Selection anywhere.  None.  It’s still branded as Uncharted, which is a bit weird when you’ve booked through Natural Selection and arrive at a camp that acts like they’ve never heard of them.  Like those horror Airbnb listings where you book a Four Seasons and arrive at a flat above a kebab shop called Four Seasons next to a dildo store.

North Island feels more on brand — it has a very Natural Selection feel to it.  Tawana-lite, in many ways.  Same feel, similar materials, just more restrained.  They have ownership here, too; not 100%, but enough to have actual input.  Which you can feel in the details.  I’ll get into that more in the separate review.

Tuludi, however, is just a marketing partnership.  Natural Selection doesn’t own it, run it, staff it, or train anyone.  It’s a distribution deal — they help sell it.  And that might sound bad, but Wilderness does the exact same thing with Jao.  And Jao is awesome.  Still, it does make it hard to define what a Natural Selection camp is.  Is it a look?  A value system?  A wine list?  A shared Dropbox folder?  The only thing that seems to follow a pattern is the food selection process, which can be very restrictive. Far too frequently I’d skip courses as I didn’t like what was on offer.

Which brings us back to Tawana — the first time they’ve done everything themselves: built it, own it, run it, trained the team, designed the lampshades, all of it.  And it’s outstanding.  Top tier.  Elite.  The dog’s bollocks.

So, what have we learnt from all this?  Not a lot.  Except that Natural Selection can run a top-tier lodge.  The hope now is that they bring that same level across the rest of the portfolio.  Better to perfect what’s in place than charge ahead in all directions until no one — including you — remembers what you’re meant to be.

Safari brands can be wildly inconsistent.  Wilderness, for example, ranges from Premier to Classic to Adventure — the latter being a category I can only assume means “ever wondered what it feels like to be eaten alive by bugs, but with a view?” Meanwhile, Singita just does one thing: top-tier, no questions asked.  Well, with one exception.

But the industry seems to follow a similar pattern, or at least, Wilderness and Great Plains follow a similar model (and perhaps &Beyond now too) and it looks like Natural Selection are happy to follow suit.