Elephant bull on classic Nkasa Rupara NP floodplain. The Linyanti river – which marks the border with botswana, flows just before the treeline.

Here on the banks of the Kwando river, in Namibia’s Mudumu National Park, I am finishing my Conde Nast Traveller assignment through Zambia and a less-discovered Namibia. It’s been almost three weeks, with challenging logistics, but every kilometre has been worth it. Apart from producing my promised articles, I now know how to best connect…

Okavango without the price-tag. That’s how myself and a hundred other Caprivi Strip ‘passionistas’ refer to this rapidly emerging safari destination. But as important, probably more so, it’s also without the crowds. Nkasa Linyanti is deep within the Strip, now officially known as Namibia’s ‘Zambezi province’. Why did Caprivi have to go? Named after an…

It’s been my happiest Zambian misadventure so far. I was originally booked into Lwenge camp, the newest on the Kafue river, in Kafue National Park. My job – to review this and two other new accommodation offerings for the UK’s Conde Nast Traveller.. ‘We’ve got a booking for the whole camp’, said Tyrone, co-owner of…

I first met Simone Micheletti at the bar of Victoria Fall’s Ilala Lodge, Zimbabwe in 2024. It was for a networking and information function celebrating the emerging Kavango-Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Parks region. I’d arrived fresh from a week spent travelling Namibia’s Caprivi Strip (officially Zambezi province) and the area linking Zambia’s Kazangula to Livingstone, finding…

I initially started this piece with a hypothetical question, a headline asking if the Delta is Africa’s top safari destination. But that’s unfair, and way too simple for such a multi-layered destination. It’s very difficult to make a ‘mistake’ when choosing a safari destination. Whether a veteran or virgin safari-goer, it is possible to have…

Mkhambati Nature Reserve Two years old, GweGwe is one of two standout boutique beach lodges found on South Africa’s east coast. As far as I know it’s the only five star operation in a tribal region known as Pondoland – within which is one of only 36 floral biodiversity hotspots on earth. What’s the attraction?…

My Best Bits (some) of South Africa Safari: 6a* There’s a part of this country’s famed western and southern Cape province that in my subjective world of favourite places stands a little taller than the rest. It’s that part of the Overberg that stretches from Hermanus and the Hemel-en-Aarde valley to Stanford and Kleinbaai. The…

Walking through nature, culture and a touch of cuisine. As much as I enjoy walking through sub-Saharan Africa’s national parks and along deserted beaches on safari, I love hiking through South Africa’s bucolic, rural countryside. Here the quiet and alertness for wildlife is replaced by chatter, new friends and camaraderie, and by day three forgetting…