Moremi
Stay & safaris
When to go
Wildlife & experiences
Areas of the reserve
Planning your trip
Booking with us
Elephant Pan
One waterhole, watched three ways: from camp, from the vehicle, and from underground.
From our guest surveys — how we gather evidence
Built where the thirst leads
Elephant Pan is organised around a single piece of geography: a natural waterhole in the reserve's dry north that never stops working. The camp sits low in the treeline facing the pan, and the parade — elephant above all, but kudu, zebra, wild dog and lion on their own schedules — runs more or less continuously, hardest of all in the dry months when this is the only water for miles. Camp life arranges itself accordingly: meals, siestas and sundowners all face the same stage, and the day's best sighting frequently happens between courses.
This is an honest bush camp rather than a lodge — comfortable canvas, essentials done properly, nothing gilded — which keeps the attention where the camp always intended it: on the water.
Canvas facing the pan
The tents point at the waterhole, and the waterhole returns the favour — dawn arrives as sound before light, a bull elephant's stomach-rumble rolling across the water into the canvas, and the first tea on your veranda comes with whatever the night left drinking. The eight tents are comfortable and unfussy — proper beds, en-suite bathrooms, the reserve's air doing the conditioning — each taking two adults with room for a child under eighteen on a bedroll.
Eye level with the herd
The bunker is the camp's party piece: an underground hide sunk at the water's edge, entered from behind, that puts your eyes at the height of an elephant's feet — trunks working the water metres from the viewing hatch, close enough to hear the suck and pour. Photographers rate this angle above almost anything a vehicle can offer, and sessions in the hide sit on the daily programme alongside the drives.
Beyond the pan, morning and afternoon game drives work the reserve's 200,000 private hectares — wild dog country, with lion, leopard and the reserve's sable and roan — and guided bush walks read the ground at track-and-sign pace. Committed walkers should take a private vehicle and guide and build the stay around it. And when the night calls, the reserve's sleep-out platforms are a game drive away, with transfers from this camp included in that stay.
The pan's pull peaks from late winter into the dry season's end, when the surrounding country empties of water — and the first hide session of the morning, before the drives go out, catches the night shift still drinking.
The bunker's trick is geometry, not glass — sunk at the water's edge and entered from behind, it puts your sightline level with an elephant's feet, an angle no vehicle in the Delta can offer.
The dry north of the reserve
Elephant Pan stands at its waterhole in the northern reaches of the Khwai Private Reserve — 200,000 private hectares between Moremi and Chobe, where the Delta's wet country gives way to dry woodland and the game gathers at the pans. Light aircraft from Maun or Kasane land at the reserve's airstrip, with a game-drive transfer to camp.
What it costs.
Rates are per person per night, based on two guests travelling together (sharing).
Six nights for the cost of four as the dry season burns to its close: with the country around it parched, elephant crowd the camp's pan through the heat, and the later weeks bring the first storms and newborn animals.
A quarter off the standard rate for honeymooning couples staying two nights or more, as late winter dries the reserve's north and elephant come to the camp's pan in numbers, then the storms arrive with migrant birds and young animals.
The angle nobody else has
Every camp promises wildlife; Elephant Pan promises a relationship with one specific piece of it — a waterhole you'll come to know by heart, watched from camp, from the vehicle, and from a bunker that puts you at trunk height. Pair the pan's theatre with the private reserve's drives and walks, and the honest-canvas rate leaves room in the budget for the sleep-out night that launches from here. It is the reserve's most distinctive value, in every sense but the one we don't print.
Is this for you
- ✓Eye-level elephant photography is on your list — the bunker is the tool
- ✓You'd take an honest bush camp with a great stage over gilded canvas
- ✓You're planning the sleep-out night and want its natural base
We honestly could have stayed on the deck all day watching the elephants come in. Pool view is ridiculous. Great guide too, and dinner was always good.
Tell us your dates and we'll build the journey around Elephant Pan — the flights, the hide sessions, and the sleep-out night to go with it.
The fine print.
- —All meals
- —Local-brand drinks
- —Two scheduled safari activities daily
- —Park fees
- —Return airstrip transfers
- —Laundry
- —Flights to and from the reserve's airstrip
- —Premium-brand drinks
- —Conservation, community & reserve fee (charged per person per night)
- —Private vehicle and guide (required for dedicated walking programmes)
- —Travel and medical insurance
- —Gratuities and items of a personal nature
Children from six years are welcome; tents take two adults with a child under eighteen on a bedroll, and families with children under ten pre-book a private vehicle for the stay.
By light aircraft from Maun or Kasane to the Khwai Private Reserve's airstrip, then a game-drive transfer to camp.
The camp is unfenced at a working waterhole — game moves through at all hours, and staff walk you to your tent after dark.