andBeyond Savute Under Canvas

In the Savute Channel area of Chobe National Park in northern Botswana, andBeyond Savute Under Canvas is a mobile tented camp that moves within the Savute concession according to the seasonal movement patterns of the wildlife — specifically the enormous elephant herds that use the Savute area’s seasonal water source as their primary dry-season destination and produce some of the most dramatic elephant concentrations available anywhere in Africa when the channel floods. The seven tented suites are set directly on the ground with minimal permanent infrastructure, positioning guests as close as possible to the ground-level experience of a landscape that functions as a serious elephant stronghold rather than as a managed wildlife reserve. The camp’s mobility allows it to position within the concession at the points of highest wildlife productivity as the season progresses.

The Savute’s wildlife character is defined by its elephants — the herds that congregate around the channel in numbers that can exceed several hundred individuals in a single view, creating wildlife scenes of a scale and intensity rare even in Botswana’s exceptional elephant habitats — alongside the lion prides that specialise in elephant predation in the Savute ecosystem, the spotted hyena clans whose relationship with the Savute’s predator community is among the most complex in the Botswanan safari landscape, and the wild dog packs that hunt the Savute’s open grasslands. Game drives in the national park, night drives in the concession, and walking safaris with a trained ranger provide the programme framework. The outdoor dining and the campfire as the social centre of the evening reflect the mobile camp’s philosophy of direct engagement with the bush environment.

andBeyond Savute Under Canvas’s conservation contribution focuses on the mobile camp model’s minimal footprint in the national park landscape — the absence of permanent structures, the reversibility of the camp’s presence — as an expression of the philosophy that the land’s integrity takes precedence over the convenience of fixed infrastructure.