Review: Tawana, Botswana

It’s easy to get caught up reading a safari lodge fact sheet and immediately write it off. No walking safaris. No boating. No night drives. You’re forced back to camp just after dark like a teenager with a strict curfew. Boring, boring, boring.

Except… what I’ve just described is Mombo — widely considered one of the best safari lodges in the world for game viewing. And Tawana has all the same restrictions. Actually worse, because it’s in a public concession, which is usually a place reserved for dystopian nightmares.

And yet… somehow, none of that matters.

Getting there

Botswana’s got your back.  The easiest way to get around, in most cases, is via helicopter.  It’s just a 15-minute trip from Maun, and you’re then barely five minutes from the lodge.  That’s how any sane person will arrive.  Trust me, the less time you spend in Maun, the exponentially better your life is.

Get to da choppppaaaa

Setting

Tawana is located in Moremi Game Reserve, which is part of the Okavango Delta — but crucially, not part of a private concession. You’re in public territory here.  So yes, there are off-roading limitations and curfews.

The camp is perched along the Gomoti River.  There’s usually water in front of camp, not boating levels, but enough for elephants to splash through and hippos to “sing” throughout the night.  If you do not know what that sounds like, imagine whale sounds, but the whale had a hippo stuck in its throat.

It’s fully unfenced, which means wildlife is a constant presence. Baboons were always wandering around the place, elephants strolled past my room at night, and most mornings we’d find lion or leopard tracks right near my room.  Epic.

Facilities

Botswana is an interesting case study in economics. It’s incredibly expensive, often prohibitively so. And often with little reason.  We’ve had families look into two-bedroom suites, only to book five- or six-bedroom private villas in Kenya instead — for less money. And while many of the camps are excellent, if you start comparing them to top-tier options in South Africa or Tanzania, they don’t hold up.

Tawana hits the rare sweet spot: the camp justifies the price, the experience backs up the camp, and the full package holds its own against the best of Africa — because, quite simply, it’s world class.

It opened in May 2024, and it’s not just Natural Selection’s newest lodge, it’s their flagship. Their statement piece. The camp that says: suck on this, Wilderness and Great Plains.  That’s because Tawana isn’t just another tented camp added to a shared concession. It’s the first lodge ever built in this particular part of Moremi, on a site no one else has used before, and it’s Natural Selection’s first camp that they run entirely themselves — without third-party partners or hand-me-down leases. Full control, full responsibility, full intent.

And the lodge itself feels like a next-gen upgrade from Natural Selection’s usual aesthetic…which I’m not sure anyone could actually pinpoint, due to the strange way their portfolio is made up of so many different sub-brands, marketing agreements and god knows what.  Timeshares?  Maybe.  But here, everything feels higher spec.  Just open your eyes and you can feel the quality.

It’s got this grand Jao-style entrance, with this fishing basket-inspired look. it looks cool, but then everything here looks cool.  Think Bisate meets Miavana. Which is an utterly useless comparison if you haven’t been to either.  Basically, blues and turquoise against pale wood, authentic Africa design, kinda thing.  It makes sense to me.

In the main area is an abundance of lounging areas, a boutique (of course), and an open-plan kitchen area that feels a bit like North Island but with far more atmosphere. Dining is split between indoor and outdoor spaces, with a firepit front and centre.  The main area has this wonderful flow between it.  At North Island you have two distinct zones, here it feels like one giant structure with a wine cellar acting as the divider, though in reality it’s all interconnected. The lighting at night is beautiful, the bar is gorgeous, and the atmosphere is top-tier.

The showpiece has to be their 16-metre lap pool.  Impressive enough, but the entire dedicated pool area is enormous, with two shaded cabanas fitted out with ridiculously soft daybeds, plus rows of loungers — eight in front of the pool, another eight tucked in the shade behind. There’s a fridge filled with drinks, the views stretch out endlessly, and if only there was Wi-Fi here, I’d happily lose an entire day on one of those daybeds.

Spa treatments are in-room, and the massage I tried — a quick 30-minute back/shoulder/head — was excellent.  Perhaps the only criticism I could offer is the lack of a dedicated spa.

The gym is way down between rooms 1 and 2, but it’s air-conditioned (praise be), with an elliptical, treadmill, bench, upright bike and a decent range of dumbbells. Outside of Singita and a handful of others, this is about as good as a safari gym gets. It even has Wi-Fi, plus its own shower and toilet, so you don’t need to be a drenched monster on your long, long walk back to your room.

The Internet is the only area I can truly hate on. It’s available only in the rooms (a policy I hate) and even then it struggles, crawling along at times when it does work, which isn’t always. It went down a few times. If you want to upload anything beyond an email, bring patience or a Starlink.  Which is strange, as they do use Starlink, so I dunno what the excuse is.

Room

There are eight rooms in total, three of which are family units. I was in Room 8, which is the furthest possible option — a solid 2-minute 20-second walk from the main area. Yes, I timed it. Mostly out of disbelief that I was reenacting my own Lord of the Rings-style journey every time I needed to grab a charger. But hey — now you know not to request it. You’re welcome.  

Rooms 5 through 8 are on one side, 4 through 1 on the other, with massive gaps between them — good for privacy, less good if you forget your sunglasses and have to go back for them. It’s because of this, they include some clever touches, like lockers by the entrance so you don’t have to lug things back to your suite.

The room is really quite lovely. There’s a blend of modern design with those “African familiarity” touches (you know the ones).  The only thing I didn’t care for was the floor, which reminded me of being in a PE lesson in the early 90s.  While none of the rooms (living room/bedroom/bathroom) are massive, the interiors are clever enough to feel spacious. You won’t be craving more space. The air-conditioning in both the bedroom and living room is a god send — especially when it feels like the sun is being heated by Botswana, not the other way around.  The view out over the water is great, with elephants regularly wandering by, and the terrace runs the full length of the suite, so you’ve always got a spot to flop down in.

There are some clever divider touches inside. Between the living room and bedroom is a desk and a daybed, although the daybed feels a bit like it exists just for symmetry — too small to actually lie on. Between the bedroom and bathroom is a make-up station. The living room has high ceilings, a curved sofa, and a curtain you can draw to separate it from the bedroom — which looks better than it sounds. There’s also a proper minibar setup with actual snacks (a miracle), and a coffee/tea station that was clearly well thought through.

The bedroom has a luggage area tucked behind the bed and they’ve ticked the boxes with USB-A and USB-C ports beside the bed. The bathroom has a motion sensor light by the entrance, like at Mombo, which I really like, plus a double vanity, large shower, separate toilet, and a freestanding bath.

The terrace outside is huge — almost too big for what’s on it. There’s the plunge pool (which isn’t shaded), two sun loungers that get some partial shade, and then a hanging basket chair and two upright chairs out front. Behind the plunge pool is the shaded lounge area, which is genuinely impressive — big sofa, easily fits four, maybe more if you like each other, and a wooden coffee table that feels half art piece, half something you’d stub your toe on at 2am.

My only real complaint are the light switches. There are about 73 of them. Yes, it gives you ambience and warm lighting layers, but there was something wonderful about Tuludi’s simplicity, with just “bedroom” and “living room” switches beside the bed. Here, it’s a small hunt every night just to shut everything off.

Still, it’s a very well-executed room, and if this is where Natural Selection is heading with future builds, I’m fully on board — ideally in Room 5 next time, to save the cardio.

Service & Food

The fact they flew my pillow out with me on the heli was completely unneccessary but more so brilliant.  They did a great job with all my preferences, and the chef was already briefed on food preferences for when I arrived.

Service was mostly great, and ET — one of the managers — is an absolute legend.  For the afternoon tea they even made me a special version of the chocolate eclairs without dark chocolate.  But, they did keep offering me wine (I don’t drink), and food could be very slow at times.

Food wise, this is where I find Natural Selection the weakest.  It’s very similar throughout their lodges, with dinner offering a couple of choices — two starters, three mains, three desserts. The portion sizes for mains were very small, but they checked in afterwards and asked if I wanted more.  Afternoon tea hits around 3:30 with a solid lineup of sweet, savoury, and fruit options, plus these excellent daily-changing smoothies that I’d happily replace most meals with.

Lunch is no-choice, but just like at North Island, one day they had a make your own pizza using the wood-fired oven.  Breakfast before game drives was a real standout compared to most places: proper yoghurts, cereals, fruit, cheese, pastries, juices — not just the “here’s a banana and a biscuit” approach most lodges take. And best of all, my guide was the first all trip to actually ask what I wanted for a packed breakfast. Revolutionary.

Activities

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: Tawana is in a national park, which means you’re back in camp by 6:30 pm and out again no earlier than sunrise. Not ideal, especially when it’s too hot to really go out before 4 pm, so you end up spending a very long stretch at camp. It is a damn fine camp, but I’m not here to gain 10,000 steps by walking back and forth to my room…..twice.  I’m here for the wildlife action.

In terms of activities, there’s also no walking, no mokoro, no boating — it’s just game drives, with off-roading technically not allowed. Emphasis on “technically.” Wink, wink.  But none of that matters when the game viewing is this good.

My guide was Rio, a lovely guy, calm energy, knew his stuff, and seemed genuinely excited about what we saw. The vehicles are excellent with soft armrests, and the centre console has room for a camera. You can even raise or lower the armrests to use them like a tripod, which is cool.

And you’ll probably need all the help you can get.  Your head will be darting in every direction with the sheer number of predators around. Cheetahs, leopards, lions — all seen on a single drive, and we weren’t even looking for the first two.

On one morning, a leopard just walked in front of the car. Later, we found a pride of nearly 20 lions, some of which decided to go swimming, while others chased a massive herd of buffalo, creating a dust cloud that made everything feel like the start of a Nat Geo documentary… until the lions predictably sat down and did absolutely nothing. Standard.  But for that hour, of lion chasing buffalo, buffalo pushing back the lions, it was epic.

We came across a caracal having a standoff with a jackal.  Even Rio was having the time of his life.

We saw baby jackals, an aardwolf, hundreds of buffalo, giraffe, elephants, lechwe, everything. The density of wildlife is properly impressive. And I’d been worried about the national park thing, but it’s one of the quietest game drive areas I’ve been in, because of where the lodge is positioned. It’s so far from the self-drivers that by the time they might reach this area, it’s already 11 am and most guests are back in camp, smashing the router as they try to get the internet working. I saw two camping vehicles the entire time, and one other lodge vehicle. That’s it.  Remember, this is August, the busiest time of the year.

One of the great things about Botswana is that helicopter flights are affordable. You can not only hop between lodges on one without selling a kidney, but you can also go doors-off scenic flight, which, obviously, I did. Tawana organised it easily, no drama, no ten forms of waiver.  I did a short scenic flight before the same helicopter took me back to Maun.  We saw hundreds of elephants swimming, buffalo everywhere, and more wildlife than you’d usually see on an entire weeks worth of drives.

Kids Friendly

There are 3 family rooms, which are not quite 2 bedroom as the second bedroom has twin beds and doesn’t have a proper bathroom. Tawana welcomes families with children over six years.

The Good

• Service
• Food

The Bad

• Limited food selection

The Luxurious

• Accommodation
• Setting
• Sightings
• Facilities
• Air conditioning!

Conclusion

I knew before arriving Tawana would be good. You can’t build a lodge in a national park, with all the usual restrictions, and charge this much without delivering something genuinely impressive.  At these rates, and in this location, it didn’t really have a choice. Thankfully, it is impressive.  Thankfully, it’s one of Botswana’s best luxury lodges.  Thankfully, it can rightfully be spoken of in the same sentences as Jao, Xigera and Mombo.

Most of Natural Selection’s other properties are built through partnerships. Tawana is fully theirs – and it shows. It’s clearly the flagship, and in terms of hard product, it’s a clear step above everything else they’ve been involved with.  When you throw in the incredible game viewing, the lack of other vehices, and the genuinely warm, attentive staff, you have something very special.