Lodges of Botswana

A peek into the very heart of the Okavango Delta.

The Okavango is a world-famous natural resource, unspoilt by Man, where the full gamut of African wildlife roams free. Our lodges, Delta Camp, Oddballs' and Oddballs' Enclave, are nestled under ancient trees on a secluded island, surrounded by floodplains and channels, just off the south-western edge of Chief’s Island, a traditional preserve of the Batawana paramount chiefs, and now in the famous Moremi Game Reserve.

Botswana’s Original Ecotourism Camp

Long before "ecotourism" became an industry buzzword, the Okavango Delta was already quietly demonstrating what it truly means to travel with purpose. Lodges of Botswana’s Oddsballs and Delta Camp, the oldest ecotourism camps in Botswana, have been pioneering a conservation-led tourism model that puts the land, the wildlife and the local community at the centre of every experience.

Where many safari operations rely on vehicle-based game drives that keep guests at a remove from the bush, Lodges of Botswana takes the opposite approach, stripping the experience back to its most elemental form. All tours are conducted entirely on foot and by mokoro (traditional dugout canoe), the very way that the people of the Delta have moved through this landscape for generations. There are no engines, no exhaust fumes, no roads carved through the papyrus. Just the sound of a pole pushing through shallow water, the call of a malachite kingfisher, and the soft crunch of dry grass underfoot.

Guides Who Are One Nature

The guides at Lodges of Botswana are not imported specialists. They are members of the local communities who have grown up reading this landscape the way others read a map. Their knowledge is generational: the tracks of a leopard in soft mud, the direction a herd of elephants moved at dawn, the way a change in wind can tell you where a pride of lions has been resting.

Our guides do not carry weapons. This is not an oversight. It is our philosophy and respect for the Moremi Game Reserve. Moving through the Delta unarmed reflects a deep respect for the environment and an understanding that, when you approach wildlife on its own terms, quietly, on foot, without aggression, the balance of nature is maintained. The guides are not observers of the bush; they are part of it. That confidence, earned through years of intimate connection to the land, is what keeps guests safe and wildlife undisturbed.

Community Partnership at the Core

Lodges of Botswana operates in genuine partnership with surrounding communities, employing local people not as labourers, but as skilled wildlife guides and camp hosts. This is not tokenism. It is a structural commitment that ensures tourism revenue flows directly into the hands of the people who live alongside the Delta and, as a result, have every reason to protect it.

When a community member earns a livelihood as a mokoro guide or camp host, conservation becomes an economic reality rather than an abstract ideal. Poaching loses its appeal when wildlife-based tourism is a source of income. Land degradation becomes a personal loss, not a distant concern. The model that Lodges of Botswana has refined over decades is precisely the kind of community-integrated conservation that UNESCO and the Ramsar Convention point to as essential for the long-term survival of ecosystems like the Okavango.

Minimal Footprint, Maximum Connection

The low-impact ethos runs through every operational decision at Lodges of Botswana. Camp infrastructure is designed to leave as little trace as possible. The mokoro, propelled by a pole rather than a motor, creates no wake, no noise and no fuel pollution in the pristine channels of the Delta. Walking safaris mean no vehicle tracks scar the floodplains or disturb nesting sites.

For guests, the reward is an experience quality that simply cannot be replicated from the roof of a Land Cruiser. Sitting level with the water in a mokoro, drifting past water lilies and watching a fish eagle overhead, or walking in single file through the bush with a barefoot guide who can name every call, track and plant. This is the Delta experienced as it has always been, and as it must continue to be.