Nature & Wildlife
Our Cessna was 5 minutes north of Maun, Botswana, when the landscape changed dramatically. Gone was the dry savanna scrub that had defined the Kalahari and so much of Botswana. In its place were the unmistakable signs of water.
African Safaris
Botswana is one of five adjacent countries within whose borders lies the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, also known as KAZA, the world’s largest transboundary conservation area. While KAZA is essential as the stronghold of half of Africa’s elephants, it is also home to significant percentages of the continent’s carnivores, including lions, leopards, cheetahs and wild dogs.
African Safaris
A Botswana safari during the green season ticks all the right boxes: optimal wildlife viewing, stays in secluded and luxurious safari camps and opportunities to photograph Southern Africa at its most lush.
African Safaris
Jan Cochran’s love of travel was evident from a young age. As a child, she was particularly fascinated by Africa, and at the age of 17, she embarked on her first trip to Kenya through a student exchange program.
African Safaris
The quintessential “big cat,” the leopard is the most generalized of the Pantherines. The four others—lion, tiger, jaguar and snow leopard—are more specialized and less adaptable. Yet all share an ancestral link to a pre-historic feline that looked and behaved much like the modern leopard.
African Safaris
Southern Africa is home to some of the world’s most majestic animals, along with the world’s largest transboundary protected region to help conserve wild expanses. In 2011, Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe came together to formally recognize a 106-million-acre region in Africa’s Kavango and Zambezi river basins as a protected wildlife area.
African Safaris
At times, wildlife conservationists do things that might look a bit strange or even questionable to the rest of us. And seeing a rhino tied by its legs and suspended from a helicopter—even though it’s to move the animal away from poachers—is one example that is uncomfortable for most of us to watch.
African Safaris
Larger than Austria and Germany combined and nearly twice as big as the United Kingdom, the enormous KAZA (Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area) lies in the Kavango and Zambezi River Basins where Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe converge.
African Safaris
On any Nat Hab trip, it’s the charismatic wildlife and breathtaking vistas that take center stage, but there’s something else our travelers frequently come home raving about—the incredible food!
Nature Photography
Every Friday, we choose our favorite photo of the week from our Wildlife Photo of the Day website. This week we chose a photo of two male lions. Photographer Susan Topper watched these two lions relaxing in the Okavango Delta. Have you taken some amazing wildlife photos during your travels?
Travel Tales
While I’m not a hardcore birder—I don’t routinely wake at the crack of dawn to spend time with our feathered friends—I always enjoy getting to know a region’s bird life.
Travel Tales
Deep within Botswana’s vast Okavango Delta, the 445,000-acre private Abu Concession shelters Abu Camp, a six-tent safari camp tucked into the unspoiled African wilderness. As the original elephant safari experience in Africa, Abu gives travelers the intimate opportunity to immerse themselves within the camp’s resident herd of rescued elephants.
