Place: Botswana’s 121 000-hectare (299 000-acre) Linyanti Wildlife Reserve, bordering Chobe National Park and at the crux of the important wildlife corridor straddling Angola, Namibia, Zambia and Botswana – is home to King’s Pool. Such corridors are essential to promote viable, self-sustaining wildlife populations and reduce human-wildlife conflict. Named for Scandinavian royalty, this stylish camp overlooks the oxbow-shaped King’s Pool Lagoon and Linyanti River system. Activities include day and night game drives, guided nature walks, and nearby hides, ideal for photographing birds and wildlife. In the dry season, guests can spend their siesta watching game come down to drink at the unique underground hide, where the water is at eye level. Seeing elephant feet and trunks almost within touching distance while safely inside is an experience that transcends that of an ordinary safari.

Wildlife: The Linyanti Wildlife Reserve has abundant wildlife in a wide variety of species. However, is most noted for one of the largest free-ranging elephant populations which can reach enormous densities during the dry winter months. Other game is as profuse, such as impala, lechwe, kudu, zebras, giraffes, buffalos, and bushbuck; along with their predators: lions, leopards, cheetahs, African wild dogs and spotted hyaenas. Rarer species such as sable and roan antelope also emerge from the woodlands during the dry season. Birding is spectacular.

Accommodation: Refurbished in 2019, King’s Pool nestles under jackalberry trees and is named in honour of Swedish King Carl Gustav XVI, who reportedly honeymooned nearby in the seventies. Totally solar-powered, richly hued in copper and teal, this stylish camp offers seven well-appointed thatch and canvas twins and one suite, each boasting a spacious bedroom and lounge area leading to a veranda that embraces picturesque views of the surrounding lagoon. The magnificentmain area comprises a pool, lounge, library, dining and convivial bar area stylishly set on expansive raised decks close to the water’s edge. Perfect for watching all the wildlife dramas unfold. An open-air “kgotla” for evening dining under the stars.

Purpose: One of the camp’s key purposes is to ensure the continued protection of a piece of land in the jigsaw of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation area which is pivotal for elephants and African wild dogs dispersal, as well as the existence of declining species like roan and sable antelope. A true wilderness area fulfilling a vital role in the area’s biodiversity conservation.

Unique Selling Points

• The camp’s positioning, alongside Chobe National Park and straddling four unfenced country borders, presents an unobstructed pathway for all manner of wildlife
• For its quintessential Linyanti day and night game drives, engaging bush walks and exceptional helicopter flips at the foot of the Great Rift Valley, and superb sunset excursions on the Queen Silvia barge
• Its one-of-a-kind eye-level waterhole at the underground hide that sets King’s Pool apart, seeing elepha