Imagine a picnic in the middle of the Zambezi River on your own private island. But this island is barely 40 feet across. Elephants browse on the riverbank in the distance, hippos cavort in a shallow pool just upstream, and the call of the African fish eagle sounds from high above. In the distance to…
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Over the last decade, over ten thousand rhinos have been lost to poaching across Africa. With both white and black rhinoceroses already endangered, these catastrophic losses have pushed both species even closer to extinction. In South Africa alone, 451 rhinos were lost during 2021. Although the general trend over the last few years has been…
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When half of the Southern African guiding fraternity view a destination as their own version of Mecca, you know something special must be happening there. Mana Pools National Park in north Zimbabwe draws people in fo many reasons, but the main attraction is most certainly one’s ability to have close encounters with wildlife on foot….
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Vumbura Plains was already one of the jewels in the Wilderness Safaris crown in Botswana, but with its recent refurbishment, it is better than it ever was before. Lying towards the northern fringes of the Okavango Delta – a world heritage site – Vumbura Plains camp is perfectly situated to take full advantage of the…
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Long-time friend of Iconic Africa, Lorin Burgoyne, recently travelled to Botswana with her husband Paul and their kids to take advantage of some of the amazing specials Iconic Africa are currently running. Any uncertainty they may have had about taking young children with them on safari was quickly dispelled. Read Lorin’s account of their trip…
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For many, the film Gorillas in the Mist sits in the fantasy bracket of what is actually possible in terms of wildlife encounters in the modern world. It just seems too surreal that encountering the most majestic of the world’s great apes in the flesh would be an actual possibility. Yet Wilderness Safari’s Bisate Lodge…
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Because photography is an art form, it is objective; a photograph that appeals to one person may not do so for another. However, there are certain guidelines to follow (I say guidelines rather than rules as they work most of the time, not every time) that will go a long way to making your photo…
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As April draws to a close and lodges across Africa get busier and busier as travellers return, we are delighted to announce that certain South African safari properties will be upholding their resident rates in the short- to mid-term. Mala Mala Game Reserve, bordering South Africa’s world famous Kruger National Park, will be offering these…
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Bordering the Moremi and Chobe National Parks – two of Botswana’s most famous – one finds the 440 000 acre Khwai Private Wildlife Reserve; one of the country’s best-kept secrets, and an area brimming with life. Elephant, lion, leopard, wild dog and cheetah abound here, as well as one of Africa’s most spectacular antelope species,…
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Jack’s camp opened in 1993, and has been the gateway to the Makgadikgadi pans and surrounds ever since. After decades of setting the standard of the Kalahari safari experience, this unique slice of Africa underwent a refurb in 2021, and if anything, we now love it even more. Being one of just three camps in…
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We’ll keep it brief here, but the news is all good! A few weeks ago Botswana scrapped the required PCR test for incoming visitors if they are vaccinated. Only last week the government of Namibia declared that the country no longer needed to wear masks in public. And the latest on the South African front,…
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Well over 150 000 hectares of traversing suggests a fantastic wildlife experience. The Abu concession in the south-western sector of the Okavango Delta is as wild as it is vast. Lala palms sit arrayed as sentinels on every horizon and seemingly endless floodplains stretch out from every small island. This is a land of change,…
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The river systems of northern Botswana blend into each other with a seamlessness that makes it quite hard to remember which one you’re actually on at times. The Kwando crosses Namibia’s Caprivi strip to form the western boundary of the “dip”, and then further east the Chobe flows slowly north-east to merge with the mighty…
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Exposure is simply a matter of how dark or light a photograph is. Too dark is termed underexposed, too light and it’s referred to as overexposed. Just right and it’s called even or neutral exposure. In its simplest form, exposure is a function of three factors: shutter speed, aperture and ISO. We’ll go into these…
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Marakele means “place of sanctuary” in the local Setswana language, and that is exactly what you feel like you are entering when you arrive at Marataba Private Reserve, which forms part of the greater Marakele National Park. Marataba itself is 21 000ha of mixed thornveld and open woodland, flanked to the east and south by…
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