Savuti Camp is located along the Savuti Channel, a dynamic waterway in the wildlife-rich Linyanti Reserve.

The camp is situated in the 490-square-mile (1 270-sq-km) Linyanti concession, which borders the Chobe Game Reserve and offers a diverse experience, including day and night game drives, boating, fishing (water activities dependent upon water in the Savuti Channel), and seasonal walking with a guide. The concession includes a range of habitats, including permanent and seasonal swamps, savanna grassland, seasonally flooded plains, riparian forest, and open woodland. Game drives explore the wildlife-rich Savuti Channel up to the Zibadianja Lagoon and along the Linyanti River.

The game viewing at Savuti is good year-round, but particularly excellent during the dry winter and early springtime (from July thru October). Large numbers of elephant remain in the area along the Savuti Channel and close to the Linyanti River. Herds of red lechwe can be seen all year along the river and impala are abundant on the floodplains, followed by their primary predator, African wild dogs.

Other wildlife commonly seen at Savuti includes zebra, giraffe, hippo, greater kudu, sable antelope, roan antelope, reedbuck, waterbuck, blue wildebeest, and warthog. Predators that are likely include lion, spotted hyena, leopard, black-backed jackal, African wild dog, and crocodile. The area is superb for birding, with a high density of raptors, grassland and woodland species, as well as water birds.

Savuti Camp is situated along the Savuti Channel, a waterway that undergoes years of dryness (when it becomes a rich grassland), partial flow, and sometimes full flow. Regardless of the water levels, the Savuti Channel attracts wildlife for its rich grasses. The camp is spread out amongst the riparian forest lining the edge of the channel and each private guest room has unrestricted views.

Savuti offers 6 spacious tented guest units, one of which is a double family unit. The tents are connected by elevated wooden walkways that lead to the main camp area. The guest rooms have private wooden decks and offer views onto the Savuti Channel.

The main dining, lounge area and main area pool are raised to maximize the vista onto the channel and to a pumped waterhole that is a favorite drinking spot for elephants. Savuti also offers an exclusive two-storey sleep-out deck (with flushing toilet and hot shower).

Wilderness Safaris are one of Africa's leading safari operators and they strive to minimize energy consumption at all their camps. Savuti Camp is powered by a hybrid system, which combines solar power (for heating water) and a diesel-powered generator. Strict eco-friendly environmental standards are maintained so that no harmful chemicals or waste is allowed to enter the pristine ecosystem of the Linyanti Reserve.

the Northern Reserves (Linyanti, Kwando, Selinda)

Located directly to the north of the Okavango Delta are three superb wildlife reserves: the Linyanti, Selinda, and Kwando. All three reserves offer superb game viewing in huge wilderness areas with very low tourist numbers. Each of the reserves has a number of safari camps and they all pair superbly with a visit to one more more camps in the Okavango. Daily charter flights are available from any of the camps in the Okavango Delta or elsewhere in northern Botswana.

Similar to the Okavango Delta, the northern reserves receive water from rivers fed by rains in northern Angola, the amount varying year to year. The Kwando River forms the border between Botswana and Namibia, and much like the Okavango River further west, it also empties into a trough of Kalahari sand, creating the Linyanti Swamp, a much smaller version of the Okavango Delta. The Linyanti Swamp empties eastward into the Linyanti River, which becomes the Chobe River further to the east.

In some years, and usually in multi-year cycles, the rain water flowing down the Kwando River is sufficient enough to cause the Linyanti Swamp to overflow to the south, where it may flow east into the Savuti Channel or southwest into the Selinda Spillway. The Savuti Channel empties into the Savute Marsh in Chobe National Park. The Selinda Spillway flows back into the northern part of the Okavango Delta.

Both of these waterways have historically gone through long periods of total dryness, becoming rich grasslands, and then suddenly flowing with water again, bringing rich sediments and new water along their courses. Like the Okavango, water flows are dynamic over time, with rains in the Angolan highlands and tectonic movements far beneath the surface of northern Botswana affecting the quantity and direction of the water in these river systems.

Away from the major rivers in the northern portion of these reserves, the southern portion of the northern reserves is dominated by dry woodland, consisting of Kalahari apple-leaf bush, mopane trees and Acacia trees on deep Kalahari sand. Elephants wander through as they travel between the Okavango and the northern rivers, and there are impala, greater kudu, roan antelope, sable antelope, but this area is mostly not used for safaris, with the safari camps located along the waterways to the north.

Wildlife viewing along the waterways in the northern reserves is outstanding, particularly between July and late October, when the bush is dry and the animals stay close to the permanent water. Elephants gather in large numbers at this time and head to the waterways to drink twice daily, sometimes swimming and playing in the deeper water. Herds of buffalo, zebra, and impala are also present in good numbers. Other herbivores include include greater kudu, giraffe, red lechwe, tsessebe, waterbuck, blue wildebeest, and warthog.

Common predators include lion, leopard, spotted hyena, black-backed jackal, and African wild dog. The northern reserves are one of the best places in Africa to see the wild dogs, which have their young around June each year, the pups are truly something to see if you get lucky. Cheetah are here in modest numbers and can be seen in the open grassland areas. Hippo and crocodile are abundant in the Kwando, Linyanti, and Chobe Rivers, as well as in the Linyanti Swamp area. Chacma baboon and vervet monkey are found in the riparian forests.

Birding in the northern reserves is outstanding, with a diverse mix of grassland, woodland, raptors, and water species found. A typical safari day can easily produce 100 species.