Tumani Tented Camp

By light aircraft into the Khwai airstrip, which the camp refers to as KPR, and then a drive of two to two and a half hours with one of its guides. That road leg is the part people underestimate. It doubles as a first game drive rather than being dead time, but it does shape your arrival day. The camp can also be reached by road from Maun in about three hours, and there is an approved helicopter landing zone on the property itself, which removes the transfer altogether. Airstrip transfers are inside the rate; the flights are not, and we book them with everything else. The drive between Tumani and its sister camp at Khwai is about an hour and a half.

We can put you on a private charter rather than a scheduled seat, typically a Cessna Caravan or a Pilatus PC-12, which is worth weighing on this route because the transfer at the far end is long enough that landing time genuinely matters. Light aircraft take one soft bag of up to twenty kilograms per person including hand luggage, about seventy centimetres long, so hard cases have to stay in Maun. The camp publishes no minimum stay, but with that transfer at each end a single night is mostly road, and three nights is where Mababe and the southern reaches of Chobe both open up properly.

Yes, and the camp says so itself: its own fact sheet describes Mababe, like much of northern Botswana, as a malaria area, particularly through the rains from November to April. Both official sources agree. TravelHealthPro, the UK's official travel health service, classes the northern half of Botswana as high risk from October to May and lists antimalarial tablets among its recommendations for those months, dropping to low risk for the rest of the year with awareness and bite avoidance. The CDC names Chobe, including Chobe National Park, alongside the Ngamiland and Okavango districts, among the areas for which it recommends prescription medicine to prevent malaria. Low risk is not the same as no risk.

We do not make medical recommendations. That is a conversation between you and your own doctor or a travel clinic, who know your history and can weigh it properly. We are travel planners, not medical professionals, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise.

Six is the minimum age, accompanied by an adult. Children of eleven and under share an adult's tent at half the adult rate, on a roll-away bed with its own mosquito net, and only two of those beds exist in the whole camp, so a bigger family needs the family suite: two en suite rooms joined by a central lounge under one canvas, with its own star deck above. From twelve upwards a guest pays the full adult rate. Children of eleven and under cannot join the guided walks or the water excursions unless the camp specifically allows it.

The rule that changes the shape of a family trip is the vehicle. Any party travelling with a child between six and eleven has to take a private vehicle for the whole stay, charged per day, and we put that in the quote from the start so it never surfaces as a surprise later. It is not really a penalty: it means the morning runs to your children's attention span rather than a stranger's. Otherwise the drives are shared, in open Land Cruisers with a canvas roof, usually six guests and never more than seven plus the guide, and any party can book a private vehicle if they want one, provided we ask in advance.

There is one dedicated wifi lounge with a Starlink satellite link, and that is the only place it works. There is none in the tents. Roaming on mobile networks generally does not work anywhere in camp, so for most guests the phone becomes a camera and messages get answered once a day in the one spot that carries them.

Power and communications are otherwise well covered. The camp runs on solar with two generators as back-up, the tents have plug points and USB charging in the bed headboards, and extension leads are available on request for anyone travelling with a sleep apnoea machine. For emergencies every game vehicle carries a radio, the managers are trained in first aid, and a dedicated medical helicopter rescue service based in Maun covers this part of Botswana. If someone in your party has to be reachable at a fixed hour, tell us before you travel and we will check the arrangement with the camp rather than assume.

Every tent has its own, the family suite included, reached by the staircase off your veranda, with a proper bed under a mosquito net and a seating area for coffee at first light. There is nothing to book and nothing extra to pay. It is part of the room rather than an excursion, which is the real difference from a sleep-out platform somewhere out in the bush: your bathroom is at the bottom of the stairs and you can come back down at three in the morning if you would rather.

It is seasonal, though, and that is worth planning around. The star decks are made up from March to the end of October, and the camp rates April to October as the stretch that gets the most from them, because the summer rains close them. Nights in June, July and August are genuinely cold in northern Botswana, so the bedding is heavy and a warm layer is not optional. If sleeping out is the reason you are going, tell us and we will say plainly whether your dates work before anything is booked.

It is fully inclusive: the tent, all meals, laundry washed and ironed and back the next day, the camp's scheduled activities and the airstrip transfers. Activities means morning and afternoon game drives, usually leaving around half past six and half past four, across the private ground at Mababe and into the southern reaches of Chobe National Park, plus guided walks all year with a certified walking guide. The bar is included too, with wines chosen to sit with the menu, classic spirits, cocktails, and tea, coffee and soft drinks through the day. The camp does not run night drives, which is worth knowing if that is high on your list.

Outside the rate sit premium drinks, private vehicles, third party excursions such as the scenic helicopter flights over the channels, gratuities, and comprehensive travel insurance, which is a condition of booking and has to cover emergency medical evacuation. There is no card machine in camp, so tips need to be in cash and brought with you. We build everything except those tips into one quote before you commit.