Moremi
Stay & safaris
When to go
Wildlife & experiences
Areas of the reserve
Planning your trip
Booking with us
Little Machaba
Four tents on the Khwai — a camp that can be entirely yours.
From our guest surveys — how we gather evidence
A camp at the scale of one party
Four tents is not a compromise here — it is the idea. Little Machaba fringes the Khwai River floodplains next to its larger sister camp, and everything about it is scaled to a single travelling party: one table, one fire, a pool deck perched right on the plains' edge, and a hands-on management team who run the camp the way a host runs a house. Guests routinely leave naming the managers and guides before the wildlife.
The style is the classic safari made light — pale canvas, wide mesh windows, unobtrusive lamplight — elegant without a hint of show, and very much at one with the riverine trees it sits among.
Four tents on raised walkways
The four tents sit apart along their raised walkways, and each keeps its own version of the same spell: pale canvas glowing at first light, wide mesh windows that let the floodplain in on three sides, and lamplight low enough that the stars stay in charge after dark. Two take a double or twin, two are family tents, and all of them put the wild at conversational distance — hippo grazing beneath the decks is a regular feature of the small hours, close enough to hear the grass tear.
Mornings begin on your own deck with the river mist still on the plain — the kind of privacy four tents can offer and forty never could.
Big sightings, short drives
The Khwai concession's game needs no warming up: leopard, lion with cubs, hyena dens and the area's famous wild dogs all turn up within minutes of camp, and the recurring guest verdict is how little driving the sightings required. Morning and afternoon drives run in open vehicles seating six; walking safaris go out when a qualified walking guide is in camp; and, whenever water levels permit, the mokoro takes to the river's channels, with polers from the sister camp next door.
Because the camp is so small, the day bends easily — four tents' worth of guests can agree on a plan over breakfast in a way thirty never could.
With only four tents, Little Machaba books out to a single party more easily than almost any camp in the region — and on exclusive use, children of all ages are welcome. For a three-generation safari or a group of friends, taking the camp whole is the version to price first.
The ground itself is shared — the Khwai concession is open to other camps and self-drivers, and big sightings can gather vehicles. The camp's intimacy is inside its fence-line of trees; the traverse beyond is public. If exclusive traversing matters most, a private-reserve camp is the right answer.
The camp's raised walkways aren't decoration — they let the river's night shift, hippo included, graze straight beneath the tents while you cross above them with a torch and a grin.
The quiet end of a famous riverfront
Little Machaba sits beside its sister camp on the Khwai River — community-concession ground at the Delta's north-eastern edge — with Moremi Game Reserve beginning on the far bank. Light aircraft from Maun land at Khwai Airstrip, with a game-drive transfer to camp.
What it costs.
Rates are per person per night, based on two guests travelling together (sharing).
One night in three comes free across Khwai's green season: the river country is quieter, young animals are about, migrant birds are back, and the afternoon storms clear sooner than most people fear.
Intimacy as the luxury
Little Machaba's luxury is arithmetic, not ornament: four tents, one table, one fire, and a staff-to-guest ratio most camps can't touch. Put that beside the Khwai's headline wildlife — and the option of simply taking the whole camp for your own party — and it makes the clearest case in the region for travellers who measure a camp by how personal it feels.
Is this for you
- ✓You want a camp small enough to feel like your own — or to actually make your own
- ✓You're a couple or small group who'd trade big-camp facilities for personal hosting
- ✓You're planning a multi-generation or friends' takeover safari
Quiet, small and no fuss. Wild dogs on our first drive (!!), lions the next day and then a very chilled mokoro trip. Exactly our sort of safari camp.
Tell us your dates and party — whether it's one tent or all four, we'll build the journey around Little Machaba.
The fine print.
- —All meals
- —Local-brand beverages
- —Two safari activities daily
- —Return Khwai airstrip transfers
- —Laundry
- —Flights to and from Khwai Airstrip
- —Premium-brand drinks
- —Internal transfers
- —Conservation & community levy (charged per person per night)
- —Travel and medical insurance
- —Gratuities and items of a personal nature
Children from twelve years are welcome and pay the full adult rate. Younger children join when the camp is booked on an exclusive-use basis, and game walks are for sixteen and over.
By light aircraft from Maun to Khwai Airstrip, then a game-drive transfer to camp.
The camp is unfenced and the river's wildlife moves through at all hours — staff walk you to your tent after dark.