A place to return to: Botswana’s Wilderness Mombo Camp

It’s 7pm on a Wednesday and the plains of Botswana’s Okavango Delta chime and vibrate with the sound of crickets, frogs and awakening nocturnal animals. At Wilderness Mombo Camp, the sky has deepened into velvet, scattered with an improbable number of stars, while a fire burns softly.

For GP and lecturer Mark Levy, Mombo has been part of his life for nearly three decades. He and his wife are among the camp’s most loyal guests, having first visited in 1997. Over the years, they have returned 29 times, watching both the camp and the surrounding wilderness evolve. This time, he arrives alone.

At home, Celia, his wife and partner of more than 50 years, lives with a congenital kidney disease that requires constant care. Mark travels for a brief pause, but he is never truly apart from her. Each day on safari, he sends photographs and updates, and she responds with something unexpectedly precise, often corrections about the wildlife. The six generations of leopards, in particular, are familiar to her, and she recognises them when others might not. In their exchange, the Delta becomes a shared language.

On the Wilderness Air flight into camp, the scale of the landscape slowly reveals itself. Rivers and narrow channels wind through the floodplains like mirrored ribbons, reflecting the sky. Elephants appear as moving punctuation marks across the green. Herds of impala and zebra gather near water; hippos hold still in shaded channels. In the Okavango Delta, proximity is not just physical; it is sensory, and even from the air the wild feels close enough to touch.

Within hours of landing, all illusion of separation disappears. At Mombo, often referred to as “The Place of Plenty”, a large elephant bull attempts to cross the wooden bridge connecting the main camp to the suites, moving with slow deliberation as guests pause to watch.

That same evening, Naledi, a leopard known to the guides, appears with her two cubs, just a few months old. They are fragile and fearless, following her into the branches of a nearby tree, their small claws catching on bark as they go. Leopards are solitary and elusive, and it is entirely possible to spend days without seeing one. Yet here, life gathers with an unusual density.

None of this would be possible without the people who know this land most intimately. The guides and staff at Mombo, what many guests come to call the Mombo family, are the backbone of the experience, ensuring both safety and comfort while carrying something rarer: a living memory of the wilderness itself. Guides like Doc Malinga and Mosamarea Tubego have spent years, in some cases decades, learning to recognise individual animals across generations. Their knowledge of the leopard lineage is remarkable and unique to Mombo, tracing six generations from the Tortilis female, first spotted in 1997, through her cub Legadima (star of the film Eye of the Leopard) down to Naledi’s cubs today.

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The camps themselves are built with a reverence to nature. At both Mombo and DumaTau Camp, the architecture is designed to recede into the landscape rather than compete with it. The spacious wood-and-canvas suites open onto floodplains with plunge pools, indoor and outdoor showers, and generous beds positioned toward the wild. After dark in Little DumaTau, we are tucked beneath mosquito nets, and the sounds of a warthog family moving beneath the suite become part of the rhythm of the night.

Mornings begin gently, light spilling over the landscape like honey, with coffee arriving shortly after. Afternoons dissolve into high tea, where skewers of locally sourced fresh fruit, delicate patisserie and indigenous baobab-infused drinks appear without ceremony.

The spreads for each meal are lavish and defined by locally grown variety. Salads are given new life with unexpected combinations, while a pizza oven, open during mealtimes, allows guests to craft their own pizzas. On a Wednesday afternoon before our evening safari, we indulge in mince and bell-pepper pizza, chicken with papaya and cashew nuts, melt-in-the-mouth fillet, and a charred-corn and chickpea salad.

Even the practicalities fade away. Laundry is returned neatly folded, a Wilderness water bottle is filled and always within reach, and breakfast can be packed for early drives. It allows for moments of complete immersion. No emails, notifications or chores, just a glass of chilled Chenin Blanc and Botswana rising up to meet you.

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At Mombo, the recently introduced Sanctuary adds another layer to the experience. A gym opens early for those who keep to familiar habits, while a yoga deck, sauna, and ice bath offer slower forms of recovery after game drives. More intentional moments of rejuvenation are found at the spa, with a remedy bar infused with local botanicals and treatments using ingredients such as baobab oil and jackalberry fruit. The space is both modern and grounded, shaped to feel open to the surrounding wilderness rather than separate from it. It feels effortless, but it’s anything but accidental.

What appears untouched is, in reality, carefully protected, whether through solar-powered operations, the safeguarding of ancient baobabs from elephant damage, or invisible boundaries that maintain the delicate balance between people and wildlife.

Across Africa, Wilderness helps protect more than 2.2-million hectares of land through a model that links tourism directly to conservation outcomes. Education initiatives invest in the next generation of conservationists; empowerment programmes create sustainable livelihoods and support the community. Protection efforts focus on the delicate balance between people and wildlife, managing coexistence in landscapes where both must survive. Luxury here exists because of conservation, not alongside it.

These moments became spectacularly apparent outside of the camps. At Little DumaTau, we embark on a sensorial picnic by barge, floating along the Linyanti River. An elephant moves between the reeds, and we watch as he crosses, his trunk a makeshift snorkel before he indulges on a few nearby waterlilies. A crocodile drifts by, visible only by his spiny snout and a few scales peeking out from the water. Later, on the speedboat, a pod of hippos watch us with indiscriminate suspicion as drinks are poured. G&Ts made with locally crafted Okavango gin.

Later, Mark reflects on how much has changed since his first visit. He remembers it before the raised walkways and the expansion of space and comfort. And yet, he keeps coming back. Not for what has changed, but for what hasn’t.

The floodplains still draw herds in their hundreds. Fig and mangosteen trees still hold their shade. Leopards still move through the grass with the same quiet precision they always have.

At home, Celia follows it all in real time, recognising animals before they are named, noticing patterns others miss. In that way, the distance between them feels smaller. The landscape, the shared language they can return to again and again.

It becomes clear that luxury here is not defined by what is added but by what is preserved. At Wilderness camps, comfort is a given, but it is the continuity of the land, the density of life, and the sense of something enduring that remains long after you leave. To experience a place like this is a privilege, not just to witness it at its most abundant, but also to know that it will still be there when we return.

The essentials

Rates: Wilderness Mombo Camp: $2,889–$5,043 (about R47,234-R82,452) per person per night, depending on the season.

Wilderness DumaTau Camp: according to season.

Accommodation: The main Mombo and DumaTau camps each offer eight luxury suites, while their smaller, more intimate offshoots, Little Mombo and Little DumaTau, feature four suites each, designed for a more exclusive, family-style experience.

Each suite includes a private deck, plunge pool, indoor and outdoor showers, and open-air living spaces designed to immerse guests in the surrounding wilderness.

What’s included: All meals, twice-daily game drives and guided activities, park fees, a selection of local beverages, laundry service, airstrip transfers (where applicable), and lodge-specific safari experiences. Guests also have access to wellness facilities, including a spa and gym.

Best time to visit:

• June – October: Peak safari season with exceptional wildlife viewing
• May – August: Okavango flood season, when the landscape transforms dramatically
• Late December – January: Green season, characterised by lush scenery and striking skies

Activities:

At Mombo Camp, experiences include expertly guided game drives, access to a wildlife hide, helicopter safaris and stargazing. At riverside DumaTau Camp, activities extend to game drives, barge cruises, boating, catch-and-release fishing and wildlife viewing from a hide.

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