You may not be surprised to hear that getting up in the dark at the crack of dawn is not something my kids ever do in our normal day to day lives. On school days, I'm lucky to drag them out of bed in time to get them there before the school bell rings. So it says a lot about the level of excitement and allure of an African safari that my boys were up on their feet every single day and ready to jump in our open game viewer for the morning game drive, even on chilly winter mornings!
Solo is 14 and Shep is 10 now and Andy and I have been taking our boys on safari since they were very young. Over the years we've been fortunate to share journeys with them in Rwanda, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa and this year it was finally time to explore Botswana with them. The privilege of this is not something we ever take for granted as a family and we're enormously grateful to our partners in Africa and in this case, Natural Selection, who took such amazing care of us on safari in Botswana. Botswana has so much to offer for family safaris.
Above: Sunset with elephants (by the way, that's ginger ale in Shep's glass, in case you were wondering!)
Botswana is actually a great first safari if you've got kids in tow because it's relatively safe, easy and provides wildlife in droves to keep those short attention spans occupied. Some safari camps have a minimum age (six) or will ask you to take a private vehicle if you have young kids. The sort of memories and family bonding you get on safari is like no other experience, so my advice if you have kids is don't keep putting it off! There's so much to see in the African bush and the education kids get in these places from their local guides is beyond any biology lesson they'll get at school.
We kicked off our safari in Khwai Private Reserve, on the eastern side of the Okavango Delta, a wildlife-rich area that is owned by the Khwai community. The beautiful, family-friendly safari camp we stayed at, Sable Alley Camp, is a partnership between Natural Selection and Khwai community. I actually brought my first ever safari group to this area over ten years ago when it was managed by another company (back then it was Banoka Camp) and I was amazed on this trip just how many more animals there are there now, a result of extremely good wildlife management and a thriving conservation-focused tourism economy. The staff and local guides are from the Khwai community and they really know how to host and make families welcome. The family rooms were two interconnected tents with an adjoining deck, giving us plenty of space for everyone to chill on the afternoon siestas. This camp is named after the amazing sable antelopes that you can occasionally see in this area (see below).
On our first afternoon here we found two lions and a lioness on a buffalo kill and I captured a fabulous moment when one of the lions walked within a metre of our open vehicle and literally looked right in to Andy's eyes (check out my instagram video here). It was good practice for Shep and Solo learning the rule about "no rapid movements" when you are in an open vehicle right next to lions as the next morning we found ourselves somehow in the middle of a lion hunt, with a pride of youngsters learning their strength as they tried to take down a Cape Buffalo right beside our car (unsuccessfully, which was good news for the buffaloes).
This area is excellent for elephants and the late afternoon game drives we had here included the most wonderful time spent just watching the big herds of elephants bathing in the Okavango Delta waters and covering themselves in dust. Combined with magnificent sunsets and an Okavango G'n'T and some snacks for the kids you'd be forgiven for thinking life couldn't get much better than this.
After a few days of awe and wonder with the big cats, wild dogs, leopards and elephants in Khwai Private Reserve, we set off to the Makgadigadi salt pans. This is an area I hadn't explored before and it didn't disappoint. If you've ever read the classic African book, "Cry of the Kalahari" by Mark and Delia Owens, you'll know the Kalahari and the area I'm talking about. We stayed at the luxurious Jacks' Camp and the down-to-earth Camp Kalahari while in the Makgadigadi Pans National Park. While the density of wildlife is not as high in the Kalahari Desert as the Okavango Delta, there's more than enough to provide fascinating game drives in this area. We saw lions devouring a fresh wildebeest kill, surrounded by jackals, and cheetahs that were moving through the area (a rare treat that our guide was really excited about). We also saw an elusive aardvark on a night drive. A highlight of this area is the habituated population of meerkats and this was something I was really looking forward to. There are few places in Africa where you can get up close to a wild population of meerkats like this and they are even cuter in the flesh than I imagined! This is a truly wonderful experience for kids on safari.
The salt pans are not typically an area that people go to on their safari as most people concentrate on the Okavango Delta, but we really loved this area as there's so much to do with a family. The clear night-time star gazing by the campfire experience, driving on quadbikes across the salt pans (and in our case playing the most remote game of family soccer ever), walking with the Bushmen and learning about their traditional uses of the plants and animals, riding on fat bikes (kind of like mountain bikes but with fatter tyres for sand, although not quite as cool according to our teenager) and the meerkat experience just added so much more in terms of activities.
Above: Quadbiking on the Makgadigadi Pans was a highlight for the boys
Our third and final area was a new addition to the Natural Selection collection, their new premier Tawana Camp in the Moremi Game Reserve. This area was truly beyond belief in terms of the wow factor, not only the lodge which was truly gorgeous, but also the wildlife. Some days we would see African wild dogs, cheetahs, leopard and lions all on the one game drive. It's really a testiment to how well high value tourism and conservation have worked together to build up relaxed wildlife populations today, so much so that lions and leopards act like you're not even there. Have a look at the divine rooms at Tawana Camp in my new instagram video here.
Family safaris are active, adventurous and incredibly memorable. Two months on and we are still talking about things that happened in Botswana. It's hard to explain why there's nothing like it, but it's got a lot to do with connecting to nature, getting out of your comfort zone and spending time with beautiful African people. Everyone should do this at least once in their lives.
As for our family safari in Botswana, the memories will stay with us forever. We won't mention the time that Solo dropped his little brother's camera lens cap out of the vehicle right next to a pride of lions.... What happens in the bush stays in the bush!
