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Little Sable
Eight tents on the quiet grasslands of the Khwai Private Reserve.
From our guest surveys — how we gather evidence
The Okavango's calmer side
Little Sable sits back from the water, looking out over open grassland that carries game all day without an engine running. The camp stands among tall trees in the heart of the Khwai Private Reserve — two thousand square kilometres of private ground wedged between Moremi Game Reserve and Chobe National Park — and its eight tents face a plain where impala, tsessebe and zebra graze through the morning and elephant drift past on their own schedule. Nothing about it is raised-voice: the setting does the work.
The main area is a thatched, open-sided room holding the lounge, bar and a single long table where meals are taken together, family style. In front of it, a sunken lounge and firepit pull everyone in for coffee before the morning drive and drinks after dinner, and a small pool with a viewing deck sits to one side for the midday hours. The kitchen has a quiet reputation of its own — travellers single out the cooking, and the care taken over allergies and requests, as often as they mention the wildlife.
Meru tents on raised decks
Unzip the flap at dawn and the plain is simply there — no glass, no gate, the grassland running gold to the treeline from the edge of your own veranda. The eight Meru tents keep the old canvas ritual alive: light breathing through the weave, a twin or double under a slow ceiling fan, and the pared-back palette of a proper bush camp — muted, practical, room for the camera bags. The evening thermos is the house touch: delivered at turndown, still hot for the first coffee as the sun finds the grass.
The bathrooms are en-suite with an indoor shower and a second one under the open sky, and the restraint throughout is deliberate: these tents are smaller and simpler than those at the reserve's showpiece camps, and what they give up in size they keep in position — every tent looks straight onto the plain.
Private ground, shared with almost no one
Two scheduled activities run daily, and the private reserve sets the terms: few vehicles, no crowds, your sighting stays yours. Morning and afternoon game drives work country that shifts from mopane woodland through riverine forest to the floodplains of the Khwai River — country for elephant, giraffe, zebra and wildebeest in numbers, with lion, leopard and wild dog the residents that bring people to Khwai. Drives run in open 4WDs carrying up to seven guests, with camera mounts fitted — the reserve's photographic roots show in the hardware.
When the water allows, the day can turn aquatic: mokoro excursions pole through the shallows at eye level with the lilies, and boat trips run the deeper channels. Water levels decide the season for both — the camp is upfront that they are water-dependent rather than guaranteed — and the drives carry the stay on their own whenever the channels run low.
Skybeds, the reserve's raised sleep-out platforms, sits a game drive away and is booked as a night out from camp between April and October, and the sunken photographic hide is usually a stop on the way over. One night there, mid-stay, is the reserve at its best.
Hides, trackers and the village
Getting out of the vehicle is what this reserve is for. Photographic hides — including a sunken hide at a busy waterhole — put you at ground level with whatever comes to drink, and are the legacy of the camp's origins as a dedicated photographic outpost. A dawn predator patrol with the Khwai Private Reserve rangers puts you in the first vehicle out, reading fresh tracks and logging sightings as working conservation data rather than spectacle. And a cultural visit to Khwai Village — the community the reserve is run in partnership with — grounds the whole stay in the place itself. Walking safaris and a back massage between drives round out the sheet; the camp will build the mix around what the group wants.
The Khwai Private Reserve is run in partnership with the people of Khwai Village — the community sits on the reserve's doorstep, its projects are funded from every stay, and the cultural visit goes to a living neighbour, not a display.
The heart of the Khwai corridor
Little Sable stands in the central grasslands of the Khwai Private Reserve, the private ground that links Moremi Game Reserve to Chobe National Park along the Khwai River — one of northern Botswana's richest wildlife corridors. Flights from Maun land at Khwai Private Airstrip, and the transfer to camp is a game drive in its own right.
What it costs.
Rates are per person per night, based on two guests travelling together (sharing).
Small camp, big ground
Little Sable pairs one of northern Botswana's best private reserves with one of its smallest camps. Eight tents on two thousand square kilometres is the whole arithmetic: sightings without a queue, a firepit where every guest fits in one circle, and the freedom of private ground — hides, mokoro water, ranger patrols — that the national parks next door cannot offer. It keeps things plain and puts the budget where it counts, on the ground and the guiding.
Is this for you
- ✓You want the private-reserve freedoms — hides, water activities, few vehicles — in the Khwai corridor
- ✓You'd rather a small, unpretentious camp than a polished lodge
- ✓You're travelling with a camera and want the hardware and the hides to match
Water was really high when we stayed and some tracks looked impossible to me. our guide just carried on. Sunset boat trip was a highlight.
Tell us your dates and we'll shape the journey — the flights, the nights, and how Little Sable pairs with the water camps deeper in the Delta.
The fine print.
- —All meals
- —Local-brand drinks
- —Two scheduled camp activities daily
- —Park fees
- —Return airstrip transfers
- —Laundry
- —Flights to and from Khwai Private Airstrip
- —Premium-brand drinks
- —Conservation, community & reserve fee (charged per person per night)
- —Private vehicle hire
- —Travel and medical insurance
- —Gratuities and items of a personal nature
Children from six years are welcome. Families travelling with children under ten pre-book a private vehicle for the duration of the stay, at an additional cost. Under-12s don't join walking safaris and wear life jackets on mokoro and boat trips.
By light aircraft from Maun to Khwai Private Airstrip, then a game-drive transfer to camp.
WiFi is available in camp; expect it for essentials rather than streaming.
The camp is unfenced and wildlife moves through freely — elephant regularly wander past the tents.