Kwando Splash Camp sits beside a permanent pan in the Kwara Private Concession, a stretch of the Okavango Delta bordering the Moremi Game Reserve. Its draw is straightforward. Game arrives at the water in front of camp, and the concession holds one of the Delta’s densest concentrations of predators.
Cheetah find the open country they need to hunt
The concession shares a 30-kilometre water boundary with Moremi, and wildlife moves freely between the two. Lion prides here run large. Cheetah find the open country they need to hunt, and African wild dogs den and range across the area. Through the dry months, elephant, giraffe, red lechwe and sitatunga gather at the pan, until the water in front of camp becomes the whole of the day’s viewing.
Kwando has kept traditional tracking at the centre of its guiding, and it shows on every game drive. A guide drives while a tracker rides a seat mounted to the front of the vehicle, reading fresh pugmarks in the sand and signalling direction with quick hand gestures. Off-road driving and night drives are permitted here, which they would not be inside Moremi itself.
Kwando has kept traditional tracking at the centre of its guiding
The permanent water means the full range of activities runs year-round, whatever the floods are doing. Mokoro glide through reed-lined shallows. Motorboats reach the deeper channels and lagoons, and land drives cover the dry savanna beyond. Few Delta camps can offer both water and land safaris across every season, and fewer still keep them running when the flood retreats.
The operation behind the camp was founded in 1997 by the conservationist Kevin Leo-Smith and his Motswana business partner John Mynhardt, and took over the photographic lease of the Kwara Concession in 1999, running the original Kwara Camp on ground once leased for hunting. Splash Camp came later, built from scratch on a former hunting site and opened in June 2018. Today Kwando is citizen-owned in Botswana.
Twelve guest units line the edge of the pan, spaced for privacy, each with a private wooden deck facing the water. The style is contemporary rather than rustic, all light sand and earth tones, navy accents, timber decking and canvas. The communal areas gather in an open-sided pavilion to catch the breeze, with a bar, a lounge, and a pool that looks straight out over the pan.
The style is contemporary rather than rustic, all light sand and earth tones
The rhythm of a day here follows the wildlife. Mornings begin in the dark around the fire pit, coffee and porridge in hand as the mist lifts off the pan, and afternoons close with high tea before the drive out. At night the soundscape takes over: the tink of painted reed frogs, hippos grunting in the channels, lions calling from across the water. The cooking is wholesome and unfussy, with no pretension attached to it.
Families are well looked after. Children aged six and over are welcome at the main camp, and families travelling with children between six and eleven take a private vehicle of their own. The Splash Enclave, a cluster of rooms with its own lounge, bar, dining area and plunge pool, can be booked exclusively by a single family or private group, with no minimum age at all. Walking safaris and mokoro excursions carry a minimum age of twelve.
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accommodation
Twelve guest units line the pan, each with an en-suite bathroom offering both indoor and outdoor showers, and a private deck facing the water. Interiors favour a contemporary sand-and-earth palette with navy accents over a heavier safari style. The Splash Enclave offers a private, exclusive-use section for families or groups, with its own lounge, bar, dining area and plunge pool.
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activities
Day and night game drives run off-road in the private concession, guided by a driver-and-tracker team using traditional tracking methods. Mokoro and motorboat safaris operate year-round on the permanent channels, alongside guided walking safaris. Seasonal catch-and-release fishing runs March to December, and boat excursions to the Godikwe Heronry run from August to December.
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conservation
The camp's operation is citizen-owned in Botswana and supports Mummy's Angels, a Maun-based trust supplying baby clothing, blankets and essentials to vulnerable mothers and newborns, and the Lady Khama Charitable Trust, which supports vulnerable women and children and matches guest donations.
Get in touch and let’s start the conversation. An initial consultation helps us understand what you’re looking for, whether that’s specific experiences, luxury touches, or marking a special occasion, and from there we’ll guide you through what’s possible so you can decide if we’re the right fit.
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The Okavango Delta
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The Okavango Delta
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The Okavango Delta
A light aircraft from Maun reaches the Kwara airstrip in about half an hour, or roughly eighty minutes coming south from Kasane, and a game drive of about forty-five minutes finishes the journey, often producing the first sightings before you have unpacked. We can also arrange a private charter, typically a Cessna Caravan or Pilatus PC-12, or a helicopter transfer for the final leg.
The flights hold you to a strict twenty kilograms per person including hand luggage, in soft bags, so leave the hard cases at home.
Yes. Northern Botswana, the Okavango Delta included, is malaria country, and the risk peaks from October to May when the summer rains stand in pools across the concession. The UK's official travel health advice and the CDC both recommend antimalarial tablets for this part of the country in that season, with the dry months from June to September lower risk rather than no risk.
A travel clinic or your doctor will match the right prevention to you, and long sleeves at dusk, repellent and the netting in the tents handle the evenings.
Take the dry winter, May to October, for the classic safari: the floodwaters that left Angola the previous summer spread through the region just as the rain stops, mornings start cold and bright, and wildlife has ever fewer places to drink as the months run on. The green season from December to March is the other face, with long grass, storm-lit skies, newborn antelope everywhere and the summer bird migrants in full colour.
The two halves feel like different safaris rather than better and worse ones, so tell us what you care about most, predators, birds, photography or solitude, and we will place the dates to match.
Almost everything: accommodation, all meals, local drinks both alcoholic and soft, laundry, and every game-viewing activity from the night drives to the boats and mokoro, with emergency medical evacuation cover folded in as well. The extras are few and knowable: tips, premium drinks, helicopter excursions, and a small per-person nightly conservation and community levy.
We build that levy into your quote from the start, and if a helicopter flight or a private vehicle appeals, tell us early and we will price the whole trip as one number with nothing arriving later as a surprise.
Soft bags only on the flights, twenty kilograms per person including hand luggage. Fill them with neutral, hard-wearing layers: night drives run here, and once the sun drops the open vehicles turn cold quickly in any season, so a warm jacket and something for your head matter more than they would at a camp whose day stops at dusk.
Daytime asks for strong sun protection and a hat for the boats and mokoro, closed shoes for the walking safaris, and a swimsuit. In the summer months a light rain layer covers the afternoon storms.
Only just. The camp offers limited wifi, phone signal is not to be relied on in the concession, and the honest advice is to plan on being largely offline between arrival and departure. Most guests find that becomes the point rather than the price.
If you need to stay reachable, for work or for family, tell us before you travel and we will set expectations straight, or route the itinerary through places where the connection is stronger.
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our approach
Every journey starts with a conversation. We take the time to understand your vision before we start planning.
Whether by phone or in person, we work with you directly to shape something that is considered, personal, and expertly delivered.
